How to Drain a House 




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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



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How to Drain a House 



Practical Information 

for Householders 

Y ^ BY 

J- 

GEO. E. WARING, Jr., M. INST. C. E. 

Consulting Engineer for Sanitary Drainage. 
(Newport, R. I.) 





NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1885 



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?.„v. 



Copyright, 1885 

BY 

HENRY HOLT & CO. 



<*$• 



W. L. Mershon & Co., 

Printers and Electroiypers, 

Rah way, N. J- 



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PREFATORY: OUR ENEMY THE 
DRAINS. 



The drains in average modern houses 
are probably the most serious and preva- 
lent enemies with which struggling 
humanity has to contend. But, at the 
worst, they are only incidentally enemies, 
and they are never necessarily so. 

All of the intended purposes of the 
drains are wholly beneficial. With all of 
their defects, it is not too much to say 
that on the whole the world is much bet- 
ter off with them than it would have been 
without them. Defective though they 
often are, whether in the house or in the 



IV PRE FA TOR Y. 

street, they have probably been, next after 
the introduction of a pure water-supply, 
the most important factor in the reduc- 
tion of the death-rate. 

That a country town, depending en- 
tirely on outside privies and on cess- 
pools, with all that their use implies in 
the way of exposure and irregularity of 
habits, and of the fouling of the ground 
and the air — would be vastly improved 
in its sanitary condition by the introduc- 
tion of even an imperfect system of 
sewerage and with plumbing-work of 
a very low and ordinary character, is 
not to be doubted. Therefore, at the 
worst, one enemy has displaced another, 
and the new one is much less to be 
dreaded than the old. 

What we still need is continued prog- 
ress in the right direction. As indoor 
water-closets are better than out-of-door 
privies ; as defective waste-pipes are better 



PREFA TOR Y. V 

than none ; and as bad sewers are better 
than cess-pools, so will good substitutes 
for all of these defective things lead to 
still further improvement. 

In the following pages the subject is 
approached entirely from the point of view 
of the individual householder — he who has 
got so far on in wisdom as to know that 
imperfect drainage is an enemy to the 
well-being of his household, and that by 
abolishing the imperfections, the enemy 
can be disarmed and made a most useful 
ally. 

The drainage system is, however, a 
trustworthy ally only so long as the woman 
of the house holds it under close and 
careful supervision. 

Her whole duty is not done when her 
husband has paid a good round sum to 
the engineer and to the plumber. It is 
only begun. 

There has been placed under her con- 



VI PREFA TOR Y. 

trol a means of safety, or an engine of 
destruction, according as she performs 
her duty, or neglects it. She can not 
safely delegate her responsibility to her 
servants. Her own eye must see that at 
no point, her neglect, at any time, per- 
mitted even the beginning of filth — for 
the beginning of filth is the beginning of 
danger. It marks the desertion of the 
ally to the ranks of the enemy. 

G. E. W., Jr. 

Newport, R. I., December, 1884. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

Prefatory : Our Enemy the Drains, . .3 

I. House-Drains and Health, . . 1 

II. Drains of the Average House, . .12 

III. The Policy Adopted, . . .22 

IV. The Healthfulness of the House, . 24 

V. Foundation and Cellar, . . .29 

VI. Foul Drainage, . . . .51 

VII. Specific Advice — as to Plumbing, . 55 

VIII. The Sewer-Gas Question, . . .62 

IX. How the Simplification of Plumbing will 

Affect the Plumber, . . .67 

X. Main Line and Main Traps, . . 72 

XI. Fresh-Air Inlets, . . . .78 

XII. Material and Construction of the Main 

Drain, . . . . .81 

XIII. The Soil-Pipe, . . . .85 

XIV. Ventilating Cowls on Soil-Pipes, . 92 
XV. Traps and Trap Ventilation, . . 96 

XVI. Putnam's Trap, . . . .115 



Vlll. 



CONTENTS. 



XVII. Plumbing Appliances, . . . 120 

XVIII. Simplicity, Economy, and Convenience, . 124 

XIX. Wash-Stands, . . . .127 

XX. Water-Closets — the Dececo, . .131 

XXI. Sinks — the Dececo Flush-Pot, . . 143 

XXII. Overflows and Stop-Cocks, . .150 

XXIII. An Example of Simple and Good Work, . 160 

XXIV. Owners, Architects and Plumbers, . 164 
XXV. Sewage Disposal for Isolated Houses, . 172 

XXVI. Sub-Surface Irrigation, . . .194 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FIGURE. PAGE. 

i. Gravel Drain under Cellar floor near Foun- 



dation, 



2. Tile Drain, with Muslin Joint, . . .34 

3. The Top Finish of a Soil-Pipe, . . -93 

4. The Crooks and Angles of Trap-Vent Pipes, . 105 

5. Putnam's Trap, . . . . .117 

6. The Dececo Water-Closet, . . -135 

7. " " Flush-Pot for Sinks, . . 146 

8. Hidden Overflow of Bath, . . .152 

9. Standing Overflow and Plug for Bath, . 155 

10. Field's Flush-Tank, .... 191 

11. Settling Basin and Flush-Tank, (Plan) . 196 

12. " " " " (Section) . 197 

13. Details of Rogers Field's Siphon, . . 198 

14. Branch Piece for Connecting the Tiles, . 206 

15. Tile, . . . . . .209 

16. Gutter, ...... 209 

17. Cap, . . . . . . 209 

18. Gutter, Tile, and Cap as Laid, (Section) . 209 

19. Method of Laying Absorption Drains, . .211 

20. Arrangement of Flush Tank and Drains for a 

Small Lot, ..... 218 



33 



HOW TO DRAIN A HOUSE, 



CHAPTER I. 

HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 

FORTY years ago the best houses in 
American cities were little if at all 
better in the matter of drainage than are 
the best houses of Paris, with very rare 
exceptions, to-day. They had at best only 
one drain to remove the kitchen waste 
and another to drain the cellar. All 
the water used was carried by hand and 
it was used in limited quantities. The 
bath was an exceptional luxury ; the water- 
closet was almost unknown, and the un- 
speakable horrors of the privy, the close- 



2 HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 

stool and the sick-chair — still dominant in 
undrained houses, and especially in coun- 
try houses — were accepted as an inevitable 
incident of human life. Happily, we are 
now emerging from this barbaric condition, 
and are learning to regulate our appliances 
according to the dictates of health and 
decency. A dozen years ago in a pamphlet 
description of the earth-closet, then re- 
cently invented, I wrote the following, 
which is as true of country houses now 
as it was then : 

Out-of-door privies, those temples of de- 
fame and graves of decency, that disfigure 
almost every country home in America, 
and raise their suggestive heads above the 
garden-walls of elegant town-houses, are, I 
believe, doomed to disappear from off the 
face of the earth. Twenty years ago, every 
back-yard in New York City was provided 
with one of these buildings ; now, since 
the water-closet has come into universal 



HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 3 

use, probably there are not twenty of 
them to the square mile. Twenty years 
hence, it is to be hoped, they will become 
equally rare in smaller towns and in the 
country. That they are objectionable 
on the score of decency and comfort, will 
be confessed by all. What is not so gen- 
erally understood is their pernicious 
effect upon health. The influence of 
subterranean stores of fecal matter in 
the propagation of disease has already 
been referred to, and will be more fully 
discussed hereafter ; but that which pro- 
duces, in the aggregate, far worse re- 
sults — the aggravation of the difficulties of 
delicate females — has attracted less atten- 
tion than its importance deserves. It is 
universally admitted that nothing is more 
injurious to health than irregularity and 
the undue retention of the rejectamenta 
of the intestines. It is not necessary to 
quote scientific authority to prove to any 



4 HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 

person of intelligence that in prompt and 
regular attention to this duty lies the car- 
dinal secret of health. We have all been 
reminded, in our own persons, that our 
health and efficiency, as well as our 
cheerfulness and good humor, depend on 
perfect regularity in this regard. There 
can be little question that the prevailing 
female complaints are often induced, and 
always intensified, by disorders of the 
digestive organs, and the oppression in 
the lower regions that neglect in this 
matter causes. Admitting the justness of 
the view, let us see what chance a woman 
living in the country has to escape the 
direst evils that a delicate health " has in 
store for its victims. The privy stands, 
perhaps, at the bottom of the garden, 
fifty yards from the house, approached by 
a walk bordered by long grass, which is 
always wet except during the sunny part of 
the day, overhung by shrubbery and vines, 



HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 5 

which are often dripping with wet, and 
sometimes exposed to the public gaze. In 
winter, snow-drifts block the way, and dur- 
ing rain there is no shelter from any side. 
The house itself is fearfully cold, if not 
drifted half-full with snow or flooded with 
rain. A woman who is comfortably 
housed during stormy weather will, if 
it is possible, postpone for days together 
the dreadful necessity for exposure that 
such conditions imply. If the walk 
is exposed to a neighboring work-shop 
window, the visit will probably be put off 
until dusk. In either case, no amount of 
reasoning will convince a woman that it is 
her duty, for the sake of preventing 
troubles of which she is yet ignorant, to 
expose herself to the danger, the discom- 
fort, and the annoyance that regularity 
under such circumstances implies. I 
pass over now the barbarous foulness 
and the stifling odor of the privy- 



6 HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 

vault. It is only as an unavoidable evil 
that these have been tolerated ; but I 
can not too strongly urge attention to the 
point taken above, and insist on the fact 
that every consideration of humanity, 
and of the welfare not only of our own 
families, but of the whole community, 
demands a speedy reform of this abuse. 
It will hardly be believed by my more 
civilized readers that, over more than 
half of the older settled parts of the 
United States, even the every-way ob- 
jectionable system that I have described 
is comparatively unknown, and that the 
corn-field and the thicket are the only 
retreat provided, while the majority of 
farmers' houses, even at the North, are 
most inadequately supplied. In view 
of the foregoing facts, I make no apol- 
ogy for calling the attention of women 
themselves to this important matter, 
believing that they will universally con- 



HO USE DRA INS A ND HE A L TH. 7 

cede that, however much of elegance 
and comfort may surround them in the 
appointments of their homes, their mode 
of life is neither decent, civilized, nor safe, 
unless they are provided with the con- 
veniences that the water-closet and the 
earth-closet alone make possible. 

As a positive source of disease, and as 
the occasion of a most injurious irregu- 
larity, the barbarous appliances of our 
ancestors, still existing in connection 
with nine-tenths of the habitations of the 
United States, were and are doubtless 
more injurious, even at the arm's length 
at which they were held, than are the 
average water-closets of average city 
houses. In saying this, however, it is not 
intended to be understood that these 
average modern appliances are acceptable 
as any thing but makeshifts — though 
relatively good, they are absolutely bad. 

That their injurious effect on health is 



8 HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. 

practically as bad as theoretically it ought 
to be, is not obviously true. Many of 
their victims die in infancy, and so large 
a number of those who pass this critical 
period withstand their evil effects, that it 
has come to be believed by the people at 
large that the outcry against them is an 
unreasonable one. 

Perhaps all popular outcry is unreason- 
able, but certainly those who will take the 
trouble to investigate the condition of the 
drainage of an average house, supplied 
with the usual plumbing appliances, will 
find defects at every turn — not merely 
slight defects which it would on the whole 
be better to avoid, but generally very 
grave defects which it is absolutely neces- 
sary to eradicate before we can hope to 
secure those conditions of perfect health 
which we have a right to demand of the 
civilization of which we boast. In periods 
of epidemic, or when cholera or yellow 



HOUSE DRAINS AND HEALTH. g 

fever is apprehended, the popular imagi- 
nation on the subject becomes excited, 
and the long death-roll which pestilence 
creates gives an almost dramatic force to 
the stronger arguments advanced against 
our imperfect plumbing work. 

As a matter of statistics, however, the 
deaths caused by any epidemic, and the 
degree to which these are favored by bad 
drainage, are of very secondary impor- 
tance. The thousands of deaths from 
yellow fever in New Orleans, and in 
Memphis, and in the Mississippi Valley 
generally, in 1878 and 1879, fairly shook 
the country with terror. They amounted 
in all, in both years, to less than twenty 
thousand. 

Their suddenness and their concen- 
tration gave them their striking effect. 

In the country at large there are annu- 
ally not fewer than one million deaths, and 
not fewer than two hundred thousand of 



I o HO USE DRAINS A ND HEAL TH. 

these are from directly preventible dis- 
eases. Not fewer than one hundred 
thousand of these latter probably owe 
their origin to diseases occasioned by de- 
fective drainage or to the improper reten- 
tion of fecal matter and other organic 
wastes. 

This enormous preventible death is, 
from the point of view of the political 
economist, only an index of something 
worse. Each preventible death doubtless 
represents, taking one disease with an- 
other, twenty cases of preventible sick- 
ness, and each such case of sickness 
implies at least twenty days of suffering 
and disability with its serious incidental 
cost in nursing and medication. 

The real benefit, therefore, that is to 
accrue to the community from the estab- 
lishment of perfect sanitary regulations, 
in the house and in the town, aside from 
the establishment of greater vigor and 



HO USE DRA INS A ND HE A L TH. 1 1 

efficiency, and of increased ability to 
withstand insalubrious conditions, is to be 
sought not so much in the prevention of 
these deaths as in the abolition of the dis- 
eases which cause them. 

As in the town, so in the individual 
house, we shall be safe if our attention is 
given only incidentally to the saving of 
life, but directly to the preservation of 
health, i. e., to the removal of all those 
conditions which affect the purity of the 
atmosphere in which we live, involving, of 
course, the purity of the ground on which 
our houses are built and the absolute pre- 
vention of the putrefaction any where 
within or near the house of its organic 
offscourings. 



CHAPTER II. 

DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. 

A HOUSE completely equipped for 
convenient modern life has two 
systems, comparable to the arterial and 
venous systems of the living animal. 

Its water supply is taken from the 
street main, or from the private reservoir 
or tank, and carried through tight pipes 
to the different points where convenience 
requires it to be delivered. This supply 
may easily be secured against contamina- 
tion, and there is little trouble, if it is 
pure at its source, in keeping it pure 
until it is delivered for use. The venous 
system — that which has for its office the 
removal of the water after use — the 



DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. 13 

water supply plus the burden of filth 
which has been added to it — has its main 
discharge through the outlet drain. 

The various points where the pure 
water is made foul are also conveniently 
distributed throughout the house. The 
drains begin usually as small lead pipes ; 
these lead to larger iron pipes and these 
to the main channel, sometimes of iron and 
sometimes of earthenware. The particular 
office which this venous system has to per- 
form is to remove all of the refuse of the 
house which is suited for transportation 
in water. This office it usually performs 
with such a degree of completeness as to 
satisfy the average demand of the house- 
holder, i. e.y when water is discharged 
from a vessel it runs into the waste-pipe 
and is not heard from again. What 
becomes of it after it passes out of sight, 
whether or not it and its filth are really 
removed from the house ; whether or not 



14 DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. 

the removal is so rapid and complete as 
to prevent deposits and accumulations, 
are questions about which the average 
member of the community is heedless. 

Lead pipes are usually tight. Iron 
pipes are connected together funnel-wise, 
so that whether they are tight or not the 
water runs away, and if the main drain 
does not carry to the outlet all that it 
receives, it leaks it out into the ground, 
where it is out of sight. 

There is more or less unpleasant smell 
here and there and often a sensation of 
closeness about the atmosphere of the 
whole house. These attract little atten- 
tion, because foul smells and closeness are 
generally accepted as a necessary incident 
of the production and disposal of filth. 

It is precisely the conditions which lead 
to these more or less obviously disagree- 
able conditions which constitute the main 
feature of the practical sanitary question. 



DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. 15 

I have now in mind a large, elabo- 
rately decorated and richly furnished 
house in Fifth Avenue, New York, which 
I was called to inspect after a serious 
case of illness. The owner believed its 
drainage works to be all right. They 
had cost a very large sum originally and 
they had been repaired at considerable 
outlay. 

Stationary wash-basins were distrib- 
uted throughout the house. The spaces 
under them were closely encased in 
fine cabinet work. There were two bath- 
rooms on each floor, containing the 
usual assortment of fixtures. The water- 
closets — their bowls elaborately deco- 
rated, some of them with gilt — were the 
usual " pan " closets of the period. Every 
pipe was concealed behind partitions, and 
all traps and machinery were covered 
under the floor or behind elaborate car- 
pentry. The kitchen and pantry sinks 



1 6 DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. 

had waste-pipes two and a half inches in 
diameter, but were so filled with grease as 
to have but a thread of water-way left. 
The drains ramified in various directions 
under the floor of the cellar. These 
carried not only the wastes of the house, 
but the water from the roof. The waste- 
pipes in the house, in compliance with what 
was then believed to be the best practice, 
were vented with small air-pipes leading 
above the roof. There was no effective 
circulation of air in any part of the drain- 
age system. There were evidences of 
positive leakage at many points, and the 
lines occupied by the supply and waste- 
pipes continued, in groups, through every 
floor, so that the whole house, behind 
the partitions and between the floor 
beams, constituted an unobstructed air 
channel from the ceiling to the garret. 
A stale odor was perceptible in all the 
passage-ways and closets and staircases, — 



DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. I J 

wherever the open fire places did not 
afford free ventilation. 

It was demonstrated in the course of 
the inspection and renewal of the work, 
that the matters intended to be removed 
from the house were very largely only 
removed from sight. For lack of any 
thing like adequate flushing, the large 
waste-pipes and soil-pipes were lined 
with offensive slime ; the kitchen and 
pantry sink wastes were nearly filled with 
putrefying food involved in the con- 
gealed grease that had attached itself to 
their walls. The drains under the cellar 
leaked at many of their joints so as to 
saturate and render foul the earth under 
the concrete floor. A direct opening into 
the sewer, intended to drain the cellar 
floor, protected only by a bell trap, from 
which the water had evaporated, was 
pouring into the air of the house as much 
foul gas from the drain as could get 



1 8 DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. 

past the accumulated dust and cobwebs 
by which it was nearly obstructed. 

The chief complaint of the owner, and 
what he believed to be the source of all 
his woe, was that the public sewer was a 
foul one and that his house was pervaded 
with sewer gas. This may or may not 
have been the case. Whether it was or 
not, it was clearly demonstrated that 
there existed in the house itself, and 
almost throughout its whole drainage 
system, from the "container" of every 
water-closet, coated on the inside nearly 
half an inch thick with fecal matter, 
to the point where the main drain passed 
through the foundation wall — a more 
than ample source of all the difficulty. 

Certain it is that when the work was 
reconstructed, though the sewer remained 
as before, the atmosphere of the house 
became, and still continues, perfectly pure. 

The reconstruction of the work was sub- 



DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. 1 9 

stantially in accordance with the principles 
set forth in the following pages. 

This is certainly not an exaggerated 
illustration of the condition of the drain- 
age works of even the best houses of only 
a few years ago. Since then, not only 
has workmanship been greatly improved, 
but a number of radical modifications 
and reformations have been universally 
adopted. In some cities these reforms 
are enforced by rigid regulation of the 
health authorities. Nevertheless, a great 
majority of the houses in New York city 
as well as elsewhere are still in a very 
defective condition, and certain require- 
ments, which the better sanitary practice 
considers important, are almost entirely 
absent. 

The glaring mistakes of ten years ago 
are no longer repeated by reputable 
plumbers. The minor and more modern 
improvements which are still less gen- 



20 DRAINS OF THE AVERAGE HOUSE. 

erally appreciated will doubtless, before 
very long, be adopted into general prac- 
tice, and the whole community will benefit 
greatly thereby. 

It is still to be urged on every man and 
woman, who realizes the importance of 
perfection in this vital element of house 
construction, to anticipate the universal 
acceptance of the better processes and to 
insist that in their own cases at least, they 
shall be adopted forthwith. 

The apprehension of cholera may stimu- 
late attention to the subject, and that it 
may be urged on by each localized out- 
break of typhoid fever or other zymotic 
disease is to be expected ; but much more 
than this is to be desired and to be advised, 
i. e., to put the whole house into such 
perfect sanitary condition as to its waste- 
pipes, and as to its drains, that it can 
no longer by any possibility be a source 
even of the malaise, headache, dullness, 



DRAINS OF THE A VERAGE HOUSE. 21 

neuralgic affection, etc., which rob life of 
so much of its comfort and usefulness. 
One may properly recall in this connection 
Poor Richard's recommendation : Take 
care of the pence and the pounds will 
take care of themselves. 

Look out well for the health-rate and 
the death-rate will lose its significance. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE POLICY HEREIN ADOPTED. 

THE following chapters are presented 
as a simple and direct statement of 
some positive knowledge, and of more 
confident belief, about the drainage of 
houses. 

They are not addressed to that indif- 
ferent public which sees a good deal of 
nonsense in the theories of all reformers. 
They are not addressed to plumbers, who, 
as a rule, are little attracted and less in- 
fluenced by what is said by any body whose 
working years have not been given to 
plumbing work. They are not even ad- 
dressed to architects and engineers, who, 
whatever their own convictions, when 
they have convictions on this subject, so 
often find it necessary to compromise with 



THE POLICY ADOPTED. 23 

their mechanics and with their clients, and 
to be content with such improvements as 
it seems under the circumstances judicious 
to insist on. They are addressed to that 
limited class who are willing to learn, and 
with whom a promising suggestion be- 
comes a fruitful germ ; to the few who 
will agree with their teachings, and to the 
more who will take their propositions into 
earnest consideration without the inten- 
tion, and often without the result, of 
agreeing with them. 

Where they can be avoided, alternative 
suggestions will not be made. If there 
are two ways of doing a thing, one right 
and the other only not wrong, the right 
way alone will be described. There is 
usually but one best way, and all that is 
to be considered here is purely and simply 
the best way of improving the drainage 
of a human habitation, and of maintain- 
ing its good sanitary condition. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE HEALTHFULNESS OF THE HOUSE. 

THE house, and the ground under and 
about it, and the air with which it 
is filled and surrounded, should be as dry 
and as clean as the best constant effort 
can make them. To this end, the most 
intelligent care and the most earnest at- 
tention must be given to all details of con- 
struction, and, no less, to the details of 
maintenance. No house, however perfect 
its original condition, can remain in perfect 
condition if subjected to the deteriorating 
influences of even ordinary carelessness. 
Many a palace is a pig-pen in its hidden 
recesses, and where the light of day and 
the eye of a scrupulous housekeeper are 
withheld, there will those enemies of the 



THE HEALTHFVLNESS OF THE HOUSE. 25 

human race, dirt and damp and decay, 
surely make their stand. The whole range 
of cubby-holes, dark cellars, uninspected 
closets, and those spaces about pipes and 
fixtures which are screened from observa- 
tion and withdrawn from the reach of care 
by the pernicious carpentry to which the 
plumbing art is so closely wedded, are, all 
of them, places to be suspected and as far 
as possible to be abolished. Where dark 
places must be maintained, they should 
be the chief objects of the householder's 
care. It is a wise old sanitary saying that 
" where daylight can not enter the doctor 
must." 

Houses that are perfect, even in the 
general arrangement and construction of 
their drainage works, are extremely rare. 
Those which, having begun perfect, con- 
tinue so under daily occupation, are still 
more rare. So true is this that it is some- 
times asked if it is, after all, worth while 



26 THE HEALTHFULNESS OF THE HOUSE. 

to encounter the additional expense and 
the constant attention that perfection 
demands ; whether, indeed, the world has 
not got on so well in spite of grave sani- 
tary defects that it is futile to hope for 
an improvement corresponding with the 
cost in money and time. 

The most simple and the sufficient 
answer to this is that the world has not 
got on well at all, and is not getting on 
well ; that among large classes of the 
population one-half of all the children born 
die before they attain the age of five 
years ; that those who come to maturity 
rarely escape the suffering, loss of time, 
and incidental expense of unnecessary 
sickness ; that the average age of 
all mankind at death is not one-half of 
what it would be were we living under 
perfect sanitary conditions ; that one of 
the chief items of cost in carrying on the 
world, to say nothing of the cost of bury- 



THE HEALTHFULNESS OF THE HOUSE. 27 

ing those who die, is that of supporting 
and attending the sick and helpless ; that 
another great item is the cost of raising 
children to, or toward, the useful age, and 
then having them die before they begin 
to make a return on the investment ; that 
the great object of a well-regulated life is 
to secure happiness for one's self and for 
one's dependents, an aim which is crushed 
to the earth with every death of wife or 
child or friend. 

There is a sentimental view, no less 
important, which need not be recited, but 
which is sufficiently suggested to the 
minds of all who have had to do with the 
sanitary regulation of houses by the fre- 
quency with which their services are 
called into requisition only when the 
offices of the undertaker have been per- 
formed. No cost and no care would be 
too great to prevent the constantly recur- 
ring domestic calamities which have had 



28 THE HEALTHFULNESS OF THE HOUSE. 

their origin, and which have found their 
development, in material conditions that 
a little original outlay and a constant and 
watchful care would have prevented. 

The objects to be attained in the drain- 
age of a house and of its site are, first, to 
remove all causes of excessive dampness ; 
and, second, to provide a means for the 
water transportation of organic wastes to 
a safe point of disposal, in such a way as 
to prevent decomposition on the premises, 
and so as to exclude from the house all 
air which has been in contact with these 
matters after their discharge into the 
drainage system. 

The means for accomplishing • these 
ends are of two distinct sorts : one allied 
to the drainage of agricultural lands, the 
other to the flushing of gutters. 



CHAPTER V. 

FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 

THE first in order of execution, and 
although not first in importance, still 
of absolute importance, is the work for 
preventing undue dampness of the interior 
atmosphere, or of the walls, of the house 
by an actual inflow of water, by an 
exhalation of vapor from the water 
contained in the soil, or by a soaking of 
the foundation. In the case of city houses 
occupying the whole width of the lots on 
which they stand, this drainage is neces- 
sarily confined to the cellar and founda- 
tions, and, as a rule, the water to be 
drained away can be delivered only into a 
public sewer — though there are frequent 



30 FOUND A TION AND CELLAR. 

exceptional cases where, by piercing an 
impervious stratum of clay or other 
material, an outlet may be gained into a 
porous stratum of gravel or sand below. 

Wherever the site is on a deep and nat- 
urally well-drained bed of sand or gravel, 
the question of drainage as a means for 
removing soil-water does not present 
itself. But here another very serious 
difficulty is to be encountered, having a 
different sanitary bearing, but of no less 
sanitary consequence. This relates to 
the protection of the house against exha- 
lations from the ground — not of moisture, 
but of the atmospheric impurities of the ■ 
subsoil. 

In the case of a country house, or of a 
town house standing in the center of a 
considerable area, it is often the most 
efficient means for securing satisfactory 
drainage to apply a very thorough system 
of underdraining to the whole area about 



FO UNDA TION A ND CELL A R. 3 1 

it and for some distance away, by laying 
independent lines of tile drains, not neces- 
sarily under the house at all, but so as to 
surround it on all sides from which water 
flows toward it, and in all cases at a depth 
several feet below the level of the cellar- 
bottom. 

It is seldom, even where a spring 
is struck in digging the cellar, that 
such drains, surrounding the site of the 
house, will not entirely divert the water. 
In this drainage of large lots, the charac- 
ter of the outlet is of secondary import- 
ance. All that is needed is that it shall 
be low enough for the free discharge of 
the flow of the drains. If the discharge 
be into a sewer, the drains should descend 
toward it with a sufficient fall to prevent 
foul water from setting back into them in 
the case of a gorging of the sewer at a 
point near the house. 

In the drainage of a city house occu- 



32 FOUND A TION AND CELLAR. 

pying the whole width of the lot, the 
same system is to be adopted, save that 
the drains, instead of being so placed as 
to surround the house and cut off water 
approaching it, must perforce be placed 
under or near the foundation to receive 
such water as may have reached its 
actual site. Here the question of out- 
let becomes a serious one. If the 
discharge must be into a sewer, then 
some special means must be adopted for 
preventing the return of the air of the 
sewer to the subsoil under the house. 

In the construction of these drains two 
courses may be pursued with perhaps an 
equally good result. One is, after having 
excavated the ditch and cleared its bot- 
tom of all loose dirt, to fill in to the 
depth of a foot with sand or gravel — 
and even fine sand will answer the pur- 
pose. The other is, to use agricultural 
drain-tiles, preferably of the smallest 



FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 



33 



size, say an inch and a quarter in diam- 
eter, laid at the bottom of a well-graded 
trench and continued to the point of 
outlet. 

Where tiles are used, the joints should 



"7777-77777777 




A 



FIG. I.— GRAVEL DRAIN, UNDER CELLAR FLOOR, NEAR FOUNDATION. 

be wrapped twice around with strips 
of muslin drawn tight. This makes 
a perfect collar, holding the tiles in 
line, and affording much the best pro- 
tection that has yet been devised against 
the ingress of sand or silt, which usually 



34 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 

finds its entrance at the lower part of the 
joint, flowing in with the water as it 
rises with the general water-level and 
flows off over the floor of the tile.* 
Before the muslin will have rotted away 
the soil will become so compacted as not 
to follow the water into the tiles. 




FIG. 2.— THE DRAIN, WITH MUSLIN JOINT. 

Where tile drains are used, it is a mis- 
take to marry them to other materials. 
Tile alone or gravel alone will make a 
very good drain — tile and gravel to- 
gether, not nearly so good when per- 

* This use of muslin is patented, but it is hereby dedicated 
to the public to the extent of its use under or within the 
foundation-wall of buildings. 



FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 35 

manence is considered. Tiles should be 
laid on the bottom of a perfectly graded 
ditch, and should be compactly imbedded 
in the heaviest loam that is found in 
excavating. When covered to the depth 
of a foot, this clay should be well trodden 
down, so that if the tile could be taken 
out, leaving the earth undisturbed, we 
should find a complete matrix, or nidus, 
which had clasped it firmly at every 
point. The old marvel, How gets the 
water in ? is too long for discussion here. 
I beg the reader to take the word of an 
old drainer that it does get in — and get 
out — perfectly. 

The large pipe drains with wide joints, 
often with fractures giving access to ver- 
min — no less than the "box drains," 
" French drains," "blind drains," and 
various other antique devices for getting 
rid of soil-water — are costly, cumber- 
some, and in the long run, inefficient, 



$6 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 

owing to their liability to obstruction. 
The amount of water that can ever be 
collected as a constant stream, except in 
the case of a very copious spring, even 
in very wet foundations, is extremely 
slight. A sand seam in the natural soil 
one-fourth of an inch thick is generally 
sufficient to carry it ; and it is such 
seams, carrying water in a slow but con- 
stant ooze, which usually produce our 
subterranean and surface springs. 

A tile an inch and a quarter in diam- 
eter will carry more water than can often 
be collected for a constant flow from 
the subsoil of half an acre of ground. A 
body of sand or gravel ten or twelve 
inches wide and of equal depth can not be 
so compacted, provided clay and loam be 
kept out of it, and it will not afford a free 
outlet for all the water that can reach it 
under these circumstances from the soil 
of an ordinary town lot. 



FO UN DA TION A ND CELL A R. 37 

As a rule, the tile will be found to 
be much cheaper than the other mate- 
rial. It is better always that the depth 
of the drain should not be less than 
two feet below the level of the foot 
of the foundation. The more rapid 
the descent the better, but even two 
inches in a hundred feet, with perfect 
grading, will remove a very large flow. 
Indeed, if the drain has no fall, or even 
if it be depressed in places, provided it 
have a good and unobstructed outlet and 
well-protected joints, its surplus water will 
be discharged as soon as the general level 
of the water reaches the overflow point. 

Where the water is to be delivered to a 
sewer, I should in any case recommend 
the making of the outlet drain, or a part 
of it, with sand or very fine gravel. I 
should at least make a break ten feet long 
in the course of the drain, and fill this 
with such material — fine enough not to 



38 FO UNDA TION A ND CELL A R. 

allow the free transmission of sewer air to 
the drains under the house, which a con- 
tinuous tile drain would permit. I am 
aware that this recommendation is radi- 
cally different from what has generally 
been set forth ; but it long ago com- 
mended itself to my judgment, and has 
proven in practice to be entirely suc- 
cessful. 

It is a usual custom to connect the un- 
derdrains of a house with the drain carry- 
ing the foul water, and to connect with 
them, also, the rain-water conductors from 
the roof. In view of what we know of 
the ease with which the contained air of 
the subsoil may be contaminated, it is of 
the utmost importance, where the best 
results are sought, to deliver the under- 
ground water itself by an independent 
line guarded with absolute completeness 
against the possible invasion of sewage or 
foul air. Nowhere within the house, nor, 



FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 39 

indeed, for some distance outside of it, 
should even the rain-water conductors 
deliver into this system. 

By the means just described, the actual 
superabundant water of the soil may be 
removed. 

In connection with the foundation 
and cellar, two things else demand 
attention. The first is the carrying up 
of dampness through the foundations into 
the walls of the house, and the exhalation 
of watery vapor, which, in the case of a 
heavy soil, however well drained, is of 
considerable amount. These difficulties 
attach chiefly to clayey ground. The next 
is the entrance into the house of the 
aerial exhalations of the soil. 

Even a clay soil contains a large 
amount of air, and under different cir- 
cumstances, such as changing barometric 
pressure, the rise and fall of water 
in the soil, and the action of winds, 



40 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 

producing a strong draught in chim- 
neys, this air enters the cellar and the 
house. This difficulty, not serious in the 
case of stiff clay, increases greatly as the 
soil grows more porous and becomes more 
dry. For example : 

A pile of stones broken to the size 
of road-metal contains a very large 
amount of air, — how large we could 
determine by filling the voids with 
water and measuring its quantity. Every 
wind that blows, every change of tem- 
perature, every rise of water into the 
mass, drives out or changes a portion of 
this air. If at the bottom of the heap 
there lay a mass of carrion, its stench 
would be almost as perceptible as though 
the stones were not there. A bed of 
such stones sufficiently large and suffi- 
ciently compacted would make a dry, 
firm, safe foundation for a house — in 
many respects an excellent foundation. 



FO UNDA TION A ND CELLAR. 4 1 

But if the atmosphere of the house were 
not separated from that of the interior of 
the mass of stones by something much 
more effective than even the usual cellar- 
bottom concrete, and if the carrion were 
putrefying beneath, the state of things 
would not be the worst possible only be- 
cause the obvious offensiveness resulting 
from the putrefaction with the free inter- 
change of atmosphere between the house 
and the foundation would insure the im- 
mediate removal of the cause of the 
stench. 

This mass of broken stone, with its 
putrefying carrion below and its human 
habitation above, is only an exaggerated 
illustration of what exists universally over 
wide ranges of country. Houses are 
sometimes built on coarse gravel. Here 
the atmospheric interchange is almost as 
free as in the illustration given. Some- 
times the gravel is finer and mixed with 



42 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 

sand which, imposing by friction more 
resistance to the movement of the air, 
limits the interchange ; but interchange 
to the extent of free inhalation and 
exhalation always goes on. Nothing 
can prevent this from being active 
when chimneys are drawing strongly, 
while the house is sealed against the 
outer air ; when, indeed, as is so often 
and so widely the case on light soils, the 
whole practical ventilation of the house — 
that is, its intake of air — is from the 
ground under it, often flowing through 
and enriched by the various familiar fumes 
of ill-kept cellars. 

The putrid carrion, it is true, we do 
not find in such concentrated condition as 
to produce an insufferable stench ; but let 
us examine the case of a certain village. 
It is not necessary to name it. There is 
not a State in New England in which 
many of its parallels may not be found, 



FOUND A TION AND CELLAR. 43 

and, indeed, there is hardly a village in 
the whole country built on a porous soil 
where corresponding conditions do not 
exist. 

The village that I have in mind was 
built on a flat deposit of gravel inter- 
mixed with very coarse sand, lying nearly 
level and extending in depth about fifteen 
feet to the permanent level of the adjacent 
tidal waters. It was a considerable village 
throughout the first half of the century ; 
then it began to expand into an important 
railroad town. It has now a large popu- 
lation and much wealth. It has a water 
supply, and " all the modern improve- 
ments" — all except sewers. Its disposal 
of household waste of all kinds is not 
upon the soil, which would be obviously 
indecent, but into the soil, which has the 
supposed advantage of hidden indecency. 

The result must inevitably be a diffusion 
throughout the whole underlying ground- 



44 FOUND A TION AND CELLAR. 

work of the village of putrefying kitchen 
grease, and fecal matter and laundry 
slops, which can not fail to produce in the 
whole atmosphere of the gravelly earth a 
condition of marked contamination. Even 
in the milder season, however free the 
interchange between the air in the ground 
and the air over it, the air of so much of 
the ground as lies under houses can not 
be by any means ideally perfect. When 
the interchange between the outer air and 
the ground is cut off by frost, and when 
cellars and wells form almost the only 
means of communication, then the condi- 
tion is only infinitely worse. 

This description may seem at first read- 
ing too sensational, and dwellers on light 
soils will point with satisfaction to the 
relatively low death-rate that their com- 
munities furnish as contrasted with that 
of dwellers on damp clay soils, where this 
atmospheric interchange is practically in- 



FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 45 

operative. This is no fair response. The 
death-rate is comparatively low under 
these circumstances, not because of, but 
in spite of, the almost universal breathing 
of the products of putrefaction as exhaled 
by the soil into the house. Could this 
element be withdrawn, it can not be ques- 
tioned that, on the lighter soil, the 
death-rate, and in larger degree the sick- 
rate, would show a much greater contrast. 
The practical question now arises, how 
to meet this difficulty? If proper sewers 
were once provided, an absolute suppres- 
sion of all vaults and cesspools would 
suffice to secure the early purification of 
the ground, for the bacteria of putrefaction 
— those universal scavengers — would soon 
make away with the existing accumulation. 
How far their action may modify the pres- 
ent ill effects of the constantly renewed 
underground filth we have as yet no 
means of knowing. If we are wise we 



46 FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 

shall take the benefit of the doubt and cut 
off the supply of foul material. 

Sooner or later, we shall secure, by 
sewerage and a compulsory use of the 
sewers, the complete purification of the 
subsoil. In the meantime, the individual 
householder who has an anxious thought 
as to the condition of his individual 
house, and who is now living subject to 
the influences of an evil due to his neigh- 
bors' many cesspools more than to his 
own single one, should seek some means 
to protect himself against enemies which 
his neighbors are willing to disregard. He 
will find his best protection in isolating 
his house in the most effective way from 
the ground in which it is founded. There 
is a common belief that stone walls laid 
in mortar, and cellar floors covered with 
a few inches of concrete, effect such isola- 
tion. This is not the fact. Concrete 
floors and granite walls are as sponge to 



FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 47 

the penetration under slight pressure of 
atmospheric currents. To what degree 
walls and concrete floors filter out the 
impurities of the air passing through 
them we do not know. Not knowing, we 
will not trust. 

One of the safest materials for a cellar 
bottom, and for the exterior packing of 
foundation walls, is a clean, smooth, 
compact clay, one which may be beaten 
into a close mass, and which has a 
sufficient affinity for moisture always 
to maintain its retentive condition. 
When used in the damp atmosphere of a 
cellar or about a foundation, it seems to 
constitute a good barrier to the passage 
of impure air. In the cellar it may, of 
course, be covered with concrete for 
cleanliness and for good appearance ; but 
six inches of clay well rammed while wet 
will impede the movement of air to a 
degree with which ordinary cellar con- 



48 FOUND A TION AND CELLAR. 

crete can furnish no parallel. Where 
clay is not available, a good smearing of 
asphalt over the outside of the founda- 
tion-wall, and a layer of asphalt between 
two thicknesses of concrete for the cellar- 
bottom, will afford a complete though 
more costly protection. Asphalt used in 
substantially the same way, especially if 
in connection with a solid course of slate 
or North River bluestone, in the founda- 
tion above the ground level, will prevent 
the soaking up into the structure of the 
moisture of a heavy soil. 

The matters above touched upon are 
seldom discussed in works on house- 
drainage, except so far as the mere 
removal of surplus soil moisture is con- 
cerned, but their importance is not likely 
to be overestimated. 

There may be good grounds for the 
opinion of those who think that many 
of the minor ailments to which the 



FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 49 

race is subject, and some of its more 
serious ailments as well, are due, not to 
the influence of an excess of filth in any 
form, but to the influence of an excess of 
moisture acting often on a little filth, 
or on a little organic waste which would 
not be classed as filth at all. Such ailments 
prevail more especially in houses in which 
mold is prevalent, which on being closed 
soon acquire a musty smell, and in which 
stuffiness is a natural condition — houses 
where a general and all-pervading slight 
dampness is to be detected. This damp- 
ness may belong to the structure rather 
than to the climate; for" there are dry 
houses at the sea-side and damp houses 
on the mountains. 

The soil has an influence over the 
interior climate of the house, which is 
even stronger than external atmospheric 
conditions. Positive knowledge does 
not carry us very far in this direction, 



SO FOUNDATION AND CELLAR. 

but the experience and observation of 
the world, especially where intermittent 
fevers and neuralgia prevail and where 
an ailing condition and low tone are 
the rule, have indicated very clearly that 
the wisest course for every man who 
would make his home perfectly healthy 
would be to separate it as completely as 
possible from all interchange of air or 
moisture with the ground on which it is 
built. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FOUL DRAINAGE. 

ANOTHER and even more important 
branch of house-drainage has come 
into general use within a comparatively 
short time. This is now attracting quite 
all the attention that is its due. Knowl- 
edge concerning it is advancing steadily, 
and on the whole satisfactorily. Mistakes 
have been made during the past dozen 
years even by the best of those who have 
had to do with it. Such mistakes have 
from time to time become recognized, 
and they have been remedied, until we 
are now approaching something like a 
fair understanding of the fundamental 
requirements of house-drainage. Perhaps 
it would be too much to say that the 
practice of the art keeps any thing like 



52 FOUL DRAINAGE. 

even pace with the knowledge as to its 
principles. 

Neither the common usage of the best 
plumbers nor the average requirements 
of the boards of health of cities show any- 
very considerable improvement over what 
was done in the better work of some 
years ago, save in better workmanship. 

Leaky joints in iron pipe, though still by 
no means uncommon, are less frequently 
found since attention has been given to 
testing joints underpressure. In the best 
work, the thorough ventilation of soil- 
pipes, furnishing an inlet as well as an 
outlet for the movement of air, is now 
generally adopted. Another step in ad- 
vance is marked by the abandonment or 
the much better construction of drains 
laid under cellar-bottoms. 

The greatest step of all — the step which 
insured wide public benefit — was taken 
when municipal boards of health became 



FOUL DRAINAGE. 53 

so generally, so almost universally, inter- 
ested in the subject of plumbing regula- 
tions. These bodies have nearly every 
where established an effective control 
over all new work done, and often over 
the amendment of old work. The main 
point being gained, that all such work is 
to be executed according to rules and 
under such inspection as will secure the 
observance of the rules, it is only a ques- 
tion of time when the rules themselves 
shall be perfected. 

As they stand, these plumbing regula- 
tions permit some things which they will 
hereafter prohibit, and they require some 
things which they will hereafter, perhaps, 
not permit. In the latter category is the 
back ventilation of traps, and in the for- 
mer the use of "pan" water-closets, of 
fresh-air inlets at the level of the side- 
walk, and of bends, cowls, and caps at 
the top of the soil-pipe. 



54 FOUL DRAINAGE. 

However, in spite of all their imperfec- 
tions, the establishment of such regula- 
tions, and the rigorous enforcement of 
their requirements under actual inspec- 
tion, have marked the greatest progress 
that has been made for a long time past. 
It is to be remembered, in criticising 
these regulations, that they are necessa- 
rily made suitable for universal applica- 
tion. They are a very inadequate guide 
for the arrangement of the plumbing 
work of a large and elaborate house ; but 
they do constitute an invaluable guide 
and safeguard for work of a cheaper sort. 
The poor tenant, who was formerly at 
the mercy of his landlord, is now pro- 
tected by a system which must inevitably 
prevent the repetition of the infamous 
work of the cheap plumber of a few 
years ago. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SPECIFIC ADVICE. 

IT is no part of the purpose with which 
this book is written to discuss, even in 
a general way, the different methods and 
processes of house-drainage, nor the vari- 
ous theories and opinions by which dif- 
ferent writers on the subject are in- 
fluenced. It will be assumed that the 
reader will be satisfied to find here only 
the writer's own opinion, and a statement 
of the grounds on which that opinion is 
based. I shall therefore confine myself 
to saying what I advise doing, with the 
reasons therefor. 

I advise, above and before all, that in 
every house, large or small, the amount 
of plumbing work be reduced to the low- 



5 6 SPECIFIC AD VICE. 

est convenient limit ; that there be not 
two sinks or water-closets or bath-tubs 
where one will suffice for reasonable con- 
venience ; that under no circumstances 
shall there be a wash-basin or any other 
opening into any channel which is con- 
nected with the drainage system, in a 
sleeping-room, nor ordinarily in a closet 
opening into a sleeping-room. I should 
confine all plumbing fixtures on bed-room 
floors to bath-rooms. 

I should give each bath-room exterior 
ventilation, but I should never locate its 
pipes against an outer wall unless I could 
give adequate protection against frost, for 
the liability to danger from the freezing 
of waste-pipes, traps, etc., is greater than 
the liability to danger from an interior 
location — if the fixtures are all of the best 
sort, and if the room itself is sufficiently 
ventilated. 

I should always, so far as possible, 



SPE CIFIC A D VICE. 5 7 

place the bath-rooms so nearly over each 
other on different floors, that they could 
all be connected by short waste-pipes 
with one vertical soil-pipe, or so that the 
soil-pipe could reach them with short off- 
sets. If bath-rooms or water-closets were 
required on all floors, or on any floor, in 
different parts of the house, I should 
serve each set with its own vertical soil- 
pipe, avoiding any considerable horizon- 
tal run, such as is at times resorted to in 
connecting fixtures at different points on 
different floors. 

I should try, so far as possible, to have 
every part of the plumbing work fully 
exposed to sight. It is occasionally neces- 
sary to run a soil-pipe or other waste- 
pipe in a position where it ought to be 
concealed ; but I should, when I could, 
avoid such situations, and when possible 
I should resort to some frank decoration 
of the pipe rather than to its concealment 
behind a casing. 



5 8 SEE CIFIC A D VICE. 

Wherever pipes pass through floors in 
going from one story to another, I should 
make an absolutely tight blocking of the 
channel. As generally arranged, the 
soil-pipe and other pipes run through 
bungling openings in the floor concealed 
behind carpentry of one sort or another, 
and the pipes themselves are boxed in 
so that the whole system constitutes a 
free run-way for vermin, and a free chan- 
nel for the diffusion from cellar to garret, 
and between floors and behind partitions, 
of whatever foul air an ill-kept cellar and 
closet-fixtures may produce. 

The diffusion throughout steam-heated 
and ill-ventilated rooms of the floating 
results of hidden decomposition is appa- 
rent to a fresh nostril in many a " first-class 
house." There is no minor item connected 
with house-drainage that is productive of 
such an obvious improvement in the 
atmosphere of the rooms as the shutting 
off of this means of intercommunication. 



SPECIFIC AD VICE. 5 9 

I should use only extra-heavy soil-pipe, 
or pipe at least with extra-strong hubs, so 
that the lead calking can be driven so 
tightly home as to make leakage under 
any pressure absolutely impossible. 

I should try to avoid the placing of 
plumbing fixtures of any sort in the cellar 
of a house, unless they could so be ar- 
ranged as to deliver into a soil-pipe or 
drain not concealed under the floor. In 
exceptional cases, where an underground 
drain is necessary, I should not follow 
the regulations and lay a mason-work 
trench with a movable cover, so that ac- 
cess to the pipe could be gained at pleas- 
ure. I should have the pipe laid in an 
open trench, and so thoroughly calked 
that under a pressure equal to the height 
of one story not a drop should escape 
at any joint ; and then, a safe conduit 
being secured, I should inclose it in a 
concreting of the best cement, embracing 



60 SEE CIFIC AD VICE. 

it so completely and so securely that if 
the iron should rust out and be washed 
away, the cement itself would constitute a 
safe channel. 

I should make it a chief aim to secure 
for all needed fixtures the greatest sim- 
plicity, and for all waste-pipes the greatest 
absence of complication. I should use 
sinks without grease-traps, bath-tubs 
without inaccessible overflows, wash- 
basins free as far as possible from fouling 
places, and water-closets without valves, 
connecting rods, or machinery. Such 
restriction would limit very materially the 
range of selection, and would lead to dis- 
carding many things that are now in 
common use. 

This suggestion is a radical one, and 
it will fail of acceptance in many 
most respectable quarters. There can 
be, however, no question as to the 
propriety of expressing one's firm con- 



SPECIFIC AD VICE. 6 1 

victions in the most distinct way. What 
I am endeavoring to convey is not 
the well-known average opinion of engin- 
eers and sanitarians — only my own 
opinion. This may be entirely wrong ; 
but it is the outgrowth of the best 
thought that I have been able to give the 
subject, and it must be conceded that no 
harm will result to the health of the 
people if it is followed out in practice. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SEWER-GAS QUESTION. 

THE main purpose of house-drainage, 
as we now understand it, is to 
remove all such wastes of domestic life 
as are suited for transportation in running 
water with the greatest completeness and 
with the greatest attainable safety. To 
secure this object, the drainage system 
must be so constructed as to carry away, 
completely and immediately, every thing 
that may be delivered into it ; to be con- 
stantly and generally well ventilated ; to 
be frequently and thoroughly flushed ; 
and to have each of its openings into the 
house guarded by a secure and reliable 
obstacle to the movement of air from the 



THE SE WER-GA S Q UESTION 63 

interior of the drain or pipe into the 
room. 

It is no longer a question of " sewer- 
gas." Wherever the offensive exhala- 
tions designated by this term exist, wher- 
ever the effluvium of putrid waste may be 
detected, there is inevitably defective 
arrangement, or defective workmanship, 
or both. 

It is no longer to be considered the 
best policy to shut off sewer-gas from the 
house by confining it to the sewer. The 
true course should be to seek the seat of 
the evil and to remove its cause. 

The foul air in a defective sewer or in 
a defective house-drain — and it more 
often originates in the latter — is invari- 
ably the result of the accumulation and 
retention of filth — its retention for a long 
enough time to allow it to enter into 
putrid decomposition. There is but one 
proper way to cure it ; that is, to prevent 



64 THE SE WER- GAS QUES TION. 

the accumulation. Such removal is to be 
secured only by thorough flushing, either 
by a copious stream accompanying the 
discharge, or by frequent periodic wash- 
ings sufficient to sweep all deposits away. 
No flushing will prevent some sliming of 
the pipes, but good ventilation will take 
care of this. 

All drains, soil-pipes, and waste-pipes 
should be absolutely tight, not only 
against the leakage of liquid, but against 
the leakage of air; they should be so 
reached, in every part, by a flushing 
stream of one sort or another, that 
deposit and accumulation will be impos- 
sible ; they should be as thoroughly 
ventilated in every part as the safety of 
the water-seal will permit. The exterior 
drain, and ultimately the sewer into 
which it delivers, should have the same 
general characteristics, it being under- 
stood that the freest possible ventilation 



THE SEWER-GAS QUESTION. 65 

is to be given to both sewer and house- 
drain, by the admission of air from with- 
out and the delivery of air to the open 
sky, without the possibility of its entering 
the house at any point, in any manner, or 
at any time. 

All fixtures should be so trapped that 
the exclusion of the air of the drain 
should be assured, but at the same time 
in such a manner that at each use of 
every fixture all the filth that it deliv- 
ers shall be carried completely away, 
the trap being immediately refilled with 
fresh water. 

Such are the leading sanitary require- 
ments of house-drainage. These being 
secured, it is a matter of little sanitary 
consequence whether the fixtures them- 
selves are cheap or costly, simple or 
elaborate, ornamented or plain. As, 
however, these appliances are devoted to 
the meaner uses of the household, good 



66 THE SE WER- GAS QUE S TION. 

taste would indicate that their most 
appropriate " elegance " is to be secured 
by making them and their belongings as 
simple as possible, and as inexpensive as 
the securing of the best results will allow. 
They should be conspicuous, if at all, by 
their purity and cleanliness. 

Having thus set forth the general 
principles that should govern the con- 
struction of the drainage work of houses 
of all classes, we may next consider its 
details. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HOW THE SIMPLIFICATION OF PLUMBING 
WILL AFFECT THE PLUMBER. 

A CHIEF obstacle to the simplification 
of the plumbing works of a house 
arises from the mistaken commercial in- 
stinct of the plumber. It looks at first 
blush as though any thing tending to cut 
down the amount of their work must be 
injurious. 

So far as the present force of good 
plumbers is concerned, it seems to me that 
their business interest lies entirely in the 
other direction. New houses are being 
built with great rapidity and old houses 
are having their plumbing work re- 
arranged more and more thoroughly every 



68 SIMPLIFICA TION OF PL UMBING. 

year. Certainly the work is increasing 
much faster than is the number of plumb- 
ers qualified to do it properly. 

If the present profusion of plumbing 
appliances is adhered to, the only possible 
way in which construction and repair can 
be done will be by increasing the number 
of plumbers, faster, much faster, than 
material for the making of good plumbers 
will present itself. 

Of course, the number of men engaged 
in this handicraft must increase constantly, 
but the more the amount of work in each 
house can be reduced the better and longer 
hold will the present force of good master 
and journeymen plumbers and the well- 
trained future addition to that force be 
able to do all of the good work offering 
within their reach. They are suffering 
now very greatly from competition with 
inferior and unprincipled men. The 
more rapidly the amount of work to 



SIMPLIFICATION OF PLUMBING. 69 

be done increases, the more will this com- 
petition work to their disadvantage. 

If this suggestion is sound, the best 
course for the better plumbers to adopt 
in the interest of their own business will 
be to approve of and to recommend such a 
reduction of the amount of work in each 
case as will enable them to manage the 
growing number of cases. 

It is appropriate in this connection to 
offer a distinct recognition of the fact that 
practically, so far as the interests of the 
whole people are concerned, the plumbing 
fraternity are by far the most influential of 
all house sanitarians. Engineers, physi- 
cians and health officers accomplish much 
by their influence with individuals, and by 
the exercise of their professional and 
official functions ; but they reach after all 
only a limited section of the community. 
The plumber on the contrary makes his 
influence felt on every hand. Where an 



70 SIMPLIFICATION OF PLUMBING. 

engineer or a sanitarian has to do with 
the drainage of one house, a plumber in 
good practice has practically the absolute 
control of a hundred houses. Ninety-nine 
men out of one hundred would receive the 
suggestion of a theoretical sanitarian in a 
very gingerly way, while they would 
accept without question the dictum of a 
practical plumber. 

Plumbers of the better class are fast 
coming to recognize the fact that the 
prosperity which this popular confidence 
brings to them, carries with it a serious 
public responsibility — a responsibility 
which, as a rule, they are endeavoring to 
meet in a spirit that is at least rare with 
men of other crafts. It is not universal 
with them. 

Another responsibility falls upon those 
who undertake to instruct architects, 
house-owners, and plumbers themselves 
as to the proper management of house- 



SIMPLIFICA TION OF PL UMBING. 7 1 

drainage, i. e., the responsibility that 
attends an interference with plumbers' 
work. It is not only important to pre- 
scribe what should be done, but it is im- 
portant to do this in such a spirit, and 
with such clearness, as to carry persua- 
sion and conviction to the minds, and to 
engage the willing interest, of these ubi- 
quitous guardians of the health of the 
household. It is mainly because of this 
responsibility that I am anxious to assure 
those whose interests lie in the construc- 
tion of house-drainage works that the 
simplification of drainage systems which 
I so earnestly advise is in no respect 
inimical to the best business interests of 
the trade. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 

IN arranging the details of house-drain- 
age the main line is always first to be 
considered. It begins at the sewer, or 
flush-tank, or — in barbarous instances — 
at the cess-pool ; passes through the 
house by such a course as may be indi- 
cated by a judicious compromise between 
directness and convenience, past the loca- 
tion of the highest fixture that is to dis- 
charge into it, and then passes out through 
the roof for free ventilation. 

The question of a main trap between 
the house and a public sewer has been 
much discussed, and is still determined 
by no rule. There should always be such 



THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 73 

a trap between the house and a flush- 
tank or a cess-pool. I am inclined to the 
belief that there should not be such a trap 
in the case of discharge into a sewer, 
unless it be especially foul. If it is only 
a great cess-pool, holding the accumu- 
lated deposits of a street or larger district, 
or if its interior atmosphere is at all com- 
parable in offensiveness with that of a 
cess-pool, then a trap will be desirable ; 
but if it has such an atmosphere as will 
admit of the entrance of workmen, and if 
its contents are carried forward in its cur- 
rent with reasonable completeness, I in- 
cline to the opinion that, even if no other 
house connected with it aids in its venti- 
lation, it will be better that the single 
house under consideration should be con- 
nected without a trap. 

I have reached this conclusion slowly 
and in opposition to the opinion of many 
of the best engineers. The objections 



74 THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 

ordinarily raised against the practice are 
that by it " the sewer-gas is laid on " to 
the house ; that contagious diseases exist- 
ing in other houses connected with the 
sewer will communicate their infection 
directly to any house not so cut off ; and 
that, as a matter of common policy, one 
man alone should not ventilate a sewer 
that is used without ventilation by neigh- 
bors. 

There are two arguments against this, 
and they seem to be controlling ones, (#.) 
The purpose to be secured is the greatest 
practicable purity of the drains and pipes 
of the particular house, and, while it is 
true that a trap will shut off the air of the 
sewer, it is also true that the trap itself, 
unless the course of the drain is very 
steep and its flushing very copious, may 
not only form a seat of decomposing filth, 
but will so set back the flow as to cause 
a deposit of foul material for some dis- 



THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 75 

tance along the drain on the house side 
of the trap 

If the sewer is not extremely offen- 
sive — more offensive than a critical in- 
vestigation made a few years ago showed 
most sewers in New York city to be — 
there will be less stench coming from 
a current of air flowing from the sewer 
without a trap than will be devel- 
oped in the house-drain itself with a trap. 
The absence of the trap will secure a 
pretty constant and effective current of 
air from the sewer through to the top of 
the soil-pipe. Without the trap, a suffi- 
cient current can be established by the 
use of a well-placed fresh-air inlet ; but 
the immediate seat of decomposition in 
and behind the trap will continue active. 
(6.) All the cry about sewer-gas being 
" laid on," and about the intercommuni- 
cation of diseases from one house to 
another by means of the sewer, is the out- 



76 THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. 

growth of a condition that is now hardly 
tolerated, and that certainly is not con- 
templated in this paper. In the older 
work, there was either no ventilation 
whatever to the drainage system of the 
house or it was very inefficient. The water 
used, though perhaps not less in amount 
then than now, was not so used as to 
secure a good flushing effect, while the 
stability of traps was then little thought 
of. 

Pressure of any sort being brought to 
bear on the atmosphere of the sewer, foul 
air escaped into house-drains and found 
no other means of relief than by forcing 
traps or by working its way out at defec- 
tive joints. Under such circumstances, 
the argument in favor of the trap was a 
strong one. Now, house-drain and soil- 
pipe are tight, ventilation is very free and 
complete, the effect of a pressure on the 
air of the sewer is not to be feared, traps 



THE MAIN LINE AND MAIN TRAPS. JJ 

are reliable, and, in the best work, joints 
are absolutely tight. 

Under such conditions the safeguard 
supposed to be furnished by the exterior 
trap is not needed — assuming always 
that the sewer is a reasonably clean one. 
Its condition will always be improved 
by the ventilation furnished by the 
untrapped drain. 



CHAPTER XL 

FRES H-AIR INLETS. 

IN the case of country houses, not dis- 
charging into sewers, the trap is a 
necessity. Wherever a trap is used, there 
must be on the house side of it an inlet for 
fresh air. There can be no real ventila- 
tion of the drainage system if it is open 
only at its top. A bottle can not be ven- 
tilated by removing its cork, nor will a 
chimney draw if it has no opening at the 
bottom. A copious inlet for fresh air, 
working in conjunction with a wide open- 
ing at the top of the soil-pipe, will insure 
a free movement throughout the whole 
system that will accomplish an adequate 
ventilation, not only of the main channel 



FRESH-AIR INLETS. 79 

itself, but, by the diffusion of gases, of 
short branches connecting fixtures with it. 
Most of the directions given insanitary 
journals and books for the arrangement 
of fresh-air inlets, especially in cities, 
seem to have been made without due regard 
to their liability to become obstructed by 
rubbish, and especially to become entirely 
closed by accumulations of snow. Many 
such inlets in New York, at the edge of 
the pavement or at the face of the curb, 
are sometimes blocked for days together 
in bad winter weather. Becoming ob- 
structed from any cause, their efficiency 
stops, and for the time being the security 
that they should afford is withdrawn. 

There is really no good reason for 
placing this opening at a distance from 
the house. I have never known annoy- 
ance resulting from the inlet pipe being 
brought out at the face of the foundation 
wall, preferably, of course, not too near 



80 FRESH-AIR INLETS. 

to windows and doors. With well-flushed 
pipes, as already said, the constant though 
often slow movement of air through them 
so reduces the offensiveness, which a few 
years since was thought to be inevitable, 
that, although there might be a slight 
outward puff when closets or baths are 
discharged, no annoyance results. 



CHAPTER XII. 

MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. 

WHETHER the soil-pipe passes 
through or under the foundation 
of the house, unless the wall be old 
enough for all danger of settlement to 
have passed, it should be carried through 
an arched opening to prevent its dis- 
turbance if settlement does occur. In 
any case, the iron pipe should be con- 
tinued for nearly or quite a full length 
(five feet) outside of the foundation wall. 
It may be continued further with advan- 
tage. Although thus laid in the ground 
and used as a drain, iron pipe is not, like 
earthenware pipe, imperishable ; still the 
greater certainty of tightness, and correct 



82 MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. 

grading, if due only to the better class of 
workmen by whom it is done, is a strong 
argument in its favor. After reaching 
solid ground that has not been disturbed 
in excavating for the foundation, a care- 
fully laid and rigidly inspected earthen- 
ware drain is to be preferred. 

After the drain passes inside of the 
foundation wall it is better, where it is 
not necessary to connect with fixtures in 
the cellar, that it should be carried in full 
sight, along the face of the cellar wall or 
suspended from the floor-beams, to the 
point where it is to turn up as a vertical 
soil-pipe. This is advisable because here 
as much as any where else in the house, 
it is important to be able to inspect the 
joints, and to know always the condition 
of the work. 

If, however, it should be necessary to 
make connection with a water-closet or 
other fixture in the cellar, it is better that 



MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. 83 

the main channel should run under the 
floor to or near the location of such fix- 
ture, in order that all or nearly all of its 
length may constitute a part of the main 
line, thoroughly flushed and thoroughly 
ventilated, like the rest of the system. 

If there are several vertical soil-pipes, 
it will suffice, of course, if one of them 
is carried down for the cellar connection, 
and the others can be carried together 
above ground and connected with the 
main line before leaving the house. A 
branch only ten or twelve feet long, run- 
ning to a servants' closet in the cellar, 
even if provided with adequate upward 
ventilation, is not likely to keep in nearly 
so good condition as it would if carrying 
also the discharge of closets and baths 
above. 

Whenever it becomes necessary to lay 
the drain underthe cellar floor, I should not 
counsel the following of the usual recom- 



84 MATERIAL AND CONSTRUCTION. 

mendation to lay an iron pipe in a mason- 
work trench, with a cover that may be 
removed for inspection. It should be 
protected as hereinbefore described. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE SOIL-PIPE. 



IT is a generally accepted rule, and a 
good one where space suffices, to use 
no short turns — technically, " T branches '" 
and " quarter bends." Two one-eighth 
bends, or a Y branch and a single one- 
eighth bend, give a more gradual and 
therefore better change of direction. So, 
in the attachment of water-closets to 
vertical soil-pipes, it is usual and better to 
make the connection with Y branches. 
Where space does not suffice, however, a 
half Y answers a sufficiently good pur- 
pose, and even a T branch (right angle) 
is less objectionable than it was when 



86 THE SOIL-PIPE. 

flushing was less copious than now. The 
soil-pipe throughout its whole length, 
horizontal as well as vertical, should be 
so secured with hangers and clamps or 
hooks and with supporting posts that it 
will be rigidly fixed in its position. 

From the beginning of the work, every 
joint should be made with a view to being 
tested under hydraulic pressure. If the 
workman has this in view, the test will 
generally discover few leaks. As ordi- 
narily made, especially where the whole 
circumference of the pipe is not easily 
accessible to the calking tool, a test will 
almost invariably disclose serious leakage. 

In every case the test should be made, 
and every semblance of a leak should be 
calked until thoroughly tight under pres- 
sure. In making this test, the simplest 
way is to close all openings into the pipe 
with disks of india-rubber compressed 
between two plates of iron forced together 



THE SOIL-PIPE. 87 

with a screw. Such plugs can be fastened 
so tightly as to hold a head of fifty feet. 
There is no special advantage, however, in 
applying this force ; for if joints are to 
leak at all, they will leak usually under a 
head of a few inches, and always under a 
head of a few feet. It is generally most 
convenient to test the vertical pipes story 
by story, the plugs being inserted through 
the water-closet branches. 

Another satisfactory test which may be 
applied after all fixtures are attached, is 
made with an air-pump and pressure- 
gauge, such as gas-fitters use. If the 
gauge stands firm even under a slight 
pressure for an hour together, the work 
may be accepted as tight. The principal 
drawback is that, if the joints are not 
tight, it is much more difficult to locate a 
slight leak than when the water test is 
used. 

I think it may be accepted as a well- 



88 THE SOIL-PIPE. 

grounded rule that no prudent owner 
should receive and pay for his plumbing 
work until all of the iron waste-pipe has 
been tested, by one or the other of these 
methods, under the personal observation 
of the architect or his plumbing expert. 
There is probably no occasion to fear 
that work once made tight will develop 
leaks for many years, the tendency to rust 
after a time, even with tar-coated or 
enameled pipe, being rather to close such 
slight leaks as may exist. 

The fear has sometimes been felt that 
sand-holes and slight imperfections in 
cast-iron soil-pipe may lead to the per- 
manent injury of the work. Ordinarily, 
this is not a real danger. Where pipes 
have been tested before erection by being 
filled with water in single lengths and 
rejected because of slight leaks, it has 
been found that a few hours later such 
leaks have become entirely closed with 



THE SOIL-PIPE. 89 

rust. Doubtless a rust closure is a per- 
manent one. 

I am no.w experimenting with a soil-pipe 
joint which promises to be successful. It 
is a turned or ground joint, which is her- 
metically tight when first put together or 
which in a very short time becomes so 
from rusting 

These experiments are not yet quite so 
far advanced that it would be expedient 
to describe here the details of the method. 

There are two grades of soil-pipe 
known to the trade, " common " and 
" extra-heavy." If common pipe has suf- 
ficiently strong hubs to stand heavy calk- 
ing, and if the outer and inner circumfer- 
ences are concentric, there is no reason 
why it may not be trusted for very long 
service ; but it is difficult to maintain the 
core in a perfectly concentric position, 
and even in the best pipe there is gener- 
ally a slight difference of thickness 



90 THE SOIL-PIPE. 

between one side and another. A very 
slight difference is a serious matter in 
common pipe. In extra-heavy pipe, un- 
less the eccentricity is very obvious, even 
the thinner portion will be thick enough 
for safety. This thicker pipe, however, 
is sometimes weakened by air bubbles in 
the mass. To detect these, the pipe 
should be tested by sharp hammering 
over its whole surface. 

In ordinary work in private houses, a 
diameter of four inches has been adopted 
as sufficient for the soil-pipe. So far as 
the mere water-way is concerned, this 
diameter is ample, even when roof water 
is admitted from very large houses. 
Indeed, for most cases a diameter of 
three inches will furnish a sufficient 
water-way ; then, again, the smaller the 
pipe the more thoroughly it is flushed by 
the stream discharged through it. 

There is, however, another considera- 



THE SOIL-PIPE. 91 

tion that is important. The siphonic 
action, or suction, produced upon lateral 
branches by the discharge of water 
through the main shaft, is in inverse pro- 
portion to the diameter of the pipe. 
The sudden discharge of a water-closet 
using three or four gallons of water 
through the three-inch soil-pipe might, 
under favorable circumstances, produce 
an almost complete vacuum in the 
branches. The same volume flowing 
through a four-inch pipe would have a 
less effect, and through a five-inch pipe 
still less. Practically, where there are no 
fixtures higher than the fourth story, 
and where the admission of air from the 
top of the soil-pipe is very free, four 
inches may generally be regarded as a 
safe size. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

VENTILATING COWLS ON SOIL-PIPES. 

THE upward extension of soil-pipe for 
complete ventilation is a matter of 
much importance, and one that has been 
considerably bedeviled by invention. 
Experiments instituted to demonstrate 
the utility of different caps or ventila- 
ting cowls have not yet been carried to a 
complete scientific result ; but they have 
sufficed to establish two important points. 
One is, that every ventilating cowl of 
whatever kind, and of whatever effective- 
ness during positive winds — when no 
cowl is needed — is invariably an obstruc- 
tor of the movement of air during calms 
or under light winds. It is known that 



VENTILA TING CO WIS IN SOU-PIPES. 93 




every deviation from the straight line 
obstructs the current by in- 
creasing the friction. There- 
fore, the cap or bend or cowl, 
one or another of which is 
almost always used, is of no 
real utility in a high wind, 
and is an absolute obstructor 
during light winds and calms. 

The best result will always $L 
be obtained by running the 
soil-pipe straight up to a 
certain elevation above the 
roof — more or less according 
to the exposure — and leaving 
it entirely open at the top. 
To prevent intentional or 
accidental introduction of ob- 
structing objects, it is a good 
practice to insert, and to 
secure, into the open mouth 
the ordinary spherical wire-basket that 




FIG. 3. — THE TOP 
FINISH OF A SOIL- 
PIPE. 



94 VENTILATING COWLS IN SOIL-PIPES. 

is used to keep leaves from obstruct- 
ing the outlets of roof gutters. 

The other point is, that a universally 
effective increase of the movement of air 
is secured by increasing the diameter of 
the pipe at its upper end. Theoretic- 
ally, the lower down the enlargement 
begins, and the greater it becomes at the 
top, the better will be the current pro- 
duced. Practically, it seems to suffice to 
increase the diameter of the single 
upper length of pipe. This is most con- 
veniently done by using an " increaser," 
from four inches to six inches, just under 
the roof, and to a set length of six-inch 
pipe at the top. 

The owner and the architect, and all 
who are interested in securing good work, 
should bear constantly in mind the 
importance of making this main channel 
for ventilation and for drainage abso- 
lutely and permanently good from bot- 



VENTILA TING CO WIS IN SOIL-PIPES. 95 

torn to top. This being assured and 
tested, the various fixtures or plumbing 
appliances may be connected with its 
branches. 



CHAPTER XV. 

TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 

TRAPS, constituting one of the most 
essential elements of plumbing work, 
have for some time past occupied the care- 
ful attention of all who are interested in 
the improvement of house-drainage. Few 
who have applied their ingenuity to the 
subject have failed to invent and patent 
a " sewer-gas" trap. I took out a patent 
for a trap of this sort myself some years 
ago — probably one of the least successful 
of the whole list. The best of the efforts 
of others, thus far, have been only meas- 
urably successful. I am still using one 
or two of them in my own work, because 
they are passably good, and because 



TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILA TION. 97 

nothing else has offered that seemed bet- 
ter. The successful accomplishment of 
the object in view offers probably the 
most hopeful field to which sanitary inven- 
tors can now turn their attention. 

Devices intended to meet existing diffi- 
culties have not all been confined to the 
form and construction of the trap itself. 
Much the most widely recommended and 
successfully enforced effort to meet the 
difficulty has been to supply what is known 
as the "back ventilation " of traps. Hav- 
ing known of the early failure of this 
device, before it was generally recom- 
mended to the public and taken up in the 
compulsory regulations of health boards, 
I have never been able to look upon it 
with favor. There is no doubt that un- 
der many circumstances it does good, but 
I believe that on the whole it does more 
harm. 

Not only as confirming my own view. 



98 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILA TION. 

but as an illustration of very thorough 
and careful experimental work, attention 
may properly be called to an investigation 
carried on for the City Board of Health 
of Boston, by J. Pickering Putnam, Esq., 
an architect of that city. These investi- 
gations have been set forth quite fully in 
illustrated communications to the "Ameri- 
can Architect," which papers certainly 
mark a very important step forward in 
sanitary literature. The deductions to 
be drawn from these investigations are 
these : 

While a sufficient vent-hole at the 
crown of a trap will prevent its contents 
from being withdrawn by siphonage (suc- 
tion), insufficiency in such an opening, 
resulting from whatever cause, defeats the 
purpose for which it was made. Insuffi- 
ciency may be due to several things. (#.) 
The opening may originally be made too 
small. ($.) It may, and very often does, 



TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 99 

become reduced in size, or entirely closed 
by the accumulation of foul matter thrown 
into it during the use of the trap, (c.) 
As its efficiency is due entirely to the ad- 
mission of air fast enough to supply the 
demand for air to fill the vacuum caused 
by water flowing through some portion of 
the pipe beyond the trap, it is not only a 
question of having an opening large 
enough to admit the air, but of having an 
adequate current led freely to the open- 
ing. 

As the opening is into a portion of the 
drainage system that is unprotected by a 
trap, it can not, of course, communicate 
with the interior atmosphere of the house ; 
it must be connected by a pipe either with 
the open air outside of the house, or with 
the air of the upper part of the soil-pipe, 
above all fixtures. The ability of this pipe 
to transmit air in the volume required de- 
pends on its size and on its directness. 



TOO TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 

A one-inch pipe, one foot long, for exam- 
ple, may admit air fast enough, while a 
longer pipe of the same diameter, or a 
smaller pipe of the same length, would 
not do so. 

One or other of the defects above indi- 
cated may very easily defeat the object, 
and, in so far as the opening may be 
decreased by the accumulation of waste 
matters, the object, which is fully secured 
while the work is new, may be perma- 
nently defeated by a condition that occurs 
after a little use. What seemed originally 
to be adequate security may become un- 
trustworthy in time. 

Then, again, the trap to which such 
back ventilation is applied depends for 
its efficiency on the permanence of its 
water-seal. A water-seal which has no 
other exposure to the air than it gets un- 
der ordinary circumstances, will not be so 
reduced by evaporation as to lose its value 



TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. ioi 

for a considerable period ; but with back 
ventilation, a current of air is established 
through the pipe in the immediate vicinity 
of the trap, and evaporation becomes 
more rapid, destroying the seal by remov- 
ing the water, in a very short time. It 
was an unsealing due to evaporation that 
first caused me to discard the method. I 
believe, most firmly, that when the system 
of back ventilation, as now practiced, is 
applied to all the traps' of a house, the 
destruction of the seal, by evaporation, 
will be much more to be feared than it 
would be in the same set of traps by 
siphonage only, if not vented. 

Traps are also frequently emptied of 
their water by capillary attraction. When 
a rag, a bit of string, a matting of hair, 
or any other porous substance having 
one end immersed in the trap, has the 
other end extending over the bend and 
leading into the discharge pipe, traps 



102 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 

having a seal of only the ordinary depth 
may be emptied in a short time by this 
action alone. In other cases, and even 
where the traps are considerably deeper, 
the capillary material, by increasing the 
evaporating surface, greatly increases the 
liability to evaporation in the presence of 
the current of air produced by the vent- 
ing-pipe. While, therefore, this capillary 
action is not an infrequent source of the 
failure of a trap which is not ventilated, 
its effect is much more serious when the 
trap is ventilated. 

Mr. Putnam's experiments were con- 
ducted in logical order. He first demon- 
strated that the air rushing through the 
trap to supply a vacuum caused by a 
flow in the piping beyond carries the 
water with it as a matter of course. 
Some of this water, striking against the 
walls of the trap, is thrown back to its 
original position, so that the whole vol- 



TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 1 03 

ume of sealing-water is rarely removed 
with a single motion, whatever the form 
of the trap. However, he found that, 
sooner or later, under a sufficiently con- 
tinued movement of air, the water, 
even in a deep trap, might be so with- 
drawn as to break the seal permanently. 
The time required for this depends very 
much upon the number of surfaces of 
the wall of the trap tending to throw the 
water back into it. It was found that, of 
the common traps, the ordinary " pot " 
or " bottle " trap offered the greatest ob- 
stacle to siphonage. It was assumed that 
" the severest test for siphonage to which 
a trap could possibly be subjected in 
practice would be that which would be 
sufficient to siphon out an eight-inch pot- 
trap or a ventilated S trap constructed in 
the usual manner." 

The apparatus used was strong enough 
to destroy in one second the seal of a 



104 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 

one and one-quarter inch S trap, with 
a one and one-quarter inch vent-opening 
at the crown, having a one and one-quar- 
ter inch smooth lead pipe, sixteen feet 
long, connected with it ; and to siphon out 
an unventilated pot-trap eight inches in 
diameter, having a seal four inches deep. 
It was shown by this apparatus that a re- 
duction of diameter of the vent-pipe, or 
an increase in its 'length, lessened the 
stability of the trap. It made a marked 
difference whether the pipe was straight 
or was bent into a coil three feet in di- 
ameter. It would seem from the descrip- 
tion that the vent-opening was as large, 
and the vent-pipe described above as 
large, as short, and as straight, as would 
ordinarily be found in practice ; and it 
was shown that the seal was, in nearly 
every case, easily destroyed. 

The experiments demonstrated that 
none of the ordinary traps can withstand 



TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 



105 




FIG. 4. — THE CROOKS AND ANGLES OF TRAP-VENT PIPES. 

_ Note : The shaded pipes are the vent pipes. The arrows show the direction of the 
air current as moving to prevent siphonage. 



106 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 

a not unusual siphonic action, even with 
what would be considered adequate ven- 
tilation. These experiments were repeated 
in a great variety of ways with the same 
general result. 

If the reader will examine the tortuous 
course of the various pipes shown in the 
accompanying illustration of actual work, 
or in any such illustration to be found in 
sanitary journals, he will see that the dif- 
ference between a straight line and a coil 
three feet in diameter is as nothing com- 
pared with what constantly occurs in 
practice where the vent-pipes turn in and 
out and up and down, and are interrupted 
by frequent branches to such an extent as 
to increase very greatly, indeed, the 
difficulty of the rapid passage of air 
through them. I have seen a single 
vent-pipe, having three branches on each 
of two upper floors, carried down by an 
irregular course with sharp turns to the 



TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 1 07 

traps of a bath, a sitz-bath, a bidet, a 
wash-stand, and a water-closet on the 
floor below. 

Aside from this serious objection, it is 
not every plumber who is able to keep his 
head in carrying out such complicated 
work, and we frequently see a distinct 
" by-pass" leading from the drain directly 
into the apartment. 

In tests of capillary action, the follow- 
ing results were obtained : Strips of hair- 
felt, closely resembling the matted accu- 
mulation of short hairs which forms so 
large a proportion of deposit in traps and 
pipes, were used, having one end immersed 
in the water of the trap and the other 
hanging over the bend. Other materials 
were similarly used. The result of the 
experiments, as affecting the question of 
ventilation, is thus set forth : 

" To test the loss by capillary attrac- 
tion on ventilated S traps, as compared 



108 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILA TION. 

with the loss on the same where unventi- 
lated, an S trap having a seal of four and 
five-eighths inches was arranged as before 
with jute half filling the trap. With the 
trap attached to a waste-pipe, and con- 
nected with the drain in the ordinary 
manner, but unventilated, the loss by 
capillary attraction was as follows : * In 
the first five minutes, one-half inch ; in 
the first forty-five minutes, one inch ; in 
twenty-four hours, three inches ; in three 
days, three and one-quarter inches ; in 
four days, three and three-eighths inches. 
Thereafter no perceptible change took 
place. It made no perceptible difference 
whether the basin side of the trap was 
opened or closed, showing that evapora- 
tion in an unventilated trap is practi- 
cally almost imperceptible. 



* A part of this was probably due to the absorption of the 
water by the fibers of the jute. — G. E. W., Jr. 



TEAPS AND TRAP VENTILA TION. 109 

The experiment was then repeated on 
the same trap ventilated at the crown into 
a cold flue, with the following result : In 
one hour, one and one-eighth inch had 
been removed ; in five hours, one and 
seven-eighths inch ; in twenty-two hours, 
two and a half inches ; in two days, three 
and one-quarter inches ; in three days, 
three and a half inches ; in four days, three 
and three-quarters inches ; in five days, 
four inches. Thus the loss continued at 
the rate of about one-quarter inch a day by 
evaporation, after the outer end of the 
jute mass had entirely dried up. This 
evaporation was nearly double what it 
would have been had it not been assisted 
by the capillary attraction. From this 
we see that ventilation greatly increases 
the danger arising from capillary attrac- 
tion, often rendering the latter dangerous 
in cases where, without ventilation, the 
seal would not have been broken. 



no TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 

Another curious experiment was tried 
to determine the influence of the venti- 
lating opening in retarding the flow 
through the trap by friction. The retard- 
ation was found, as a general result, to 
be about thirty per cent. This is, of course, 
a reduction to that extent of the power of 
the stream flowing through a trap to 
overcome the tendency to form deposits. 

It would naturally seem a strange pro- 
ceeding on the part of a writer to go back 
to the discarded practice of former times, 
and to advise now what he condemned, 
and condemned with good reason, a few 
years ago. I am tempted to do some- 
thing very like this. I say tempted to do 
it, for I am not in my own mind entirely 
satisfied that it is best to do it. It is best 
certainly to state my own present notions 
on the subject, leaving the reader to form 
his own conclusions as to the proper decis- 
ion to make in the matter. 



TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. Ill 

It was formerly an almost universal 
practice, especially in work done by 
plumbers not acting under professional 
advice, to trap the wastes of the bath and 
the wash-basin by connecting them with 
the water-closet trap below the water 
level. This was very urgently and very 
properly condemned. The water-closet 
trap was generally filled with a filthy 
mass containing more or less semi- 
solid fecal matter in a state of active 
decomposition. There was often little 
more flushing effect in the discharge of 
the closet than that produced by tipping 
the pan-full of sealing water on to the 
side of the container and letting it run 
slowly down into the trap. In most cases 
all that was removed was what had 
become fluid by putrefaction and macera- 
tion. The addition of warm water from 
a bath or basin greatly aggravated the 
putrefaction of such of this matter as 



112 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 

might remain, and of the adhering slime 
of the sides of the trap. The heat thus 
produced aggravated the pestiferous con- 
dition of the contents of the iron receiver 
itself. The waste-pipes of the bath and 
basin were fouled by the set-back of filth. 

So long as traps were in that condition, 
the argument against such a method of 
trapping other vessels was absolute and 
unanswerable. But in decent modern 
work, water-closet traps in such condition 
no longer exist. Where two quarts of 
water were formerly used, we now use two 
or three gallons, and the larger quantity 
is all discharged in the time formerly re- 
quired for the smaller ; so that the flush- 
ing is complete and the water of the trap 
is always clean. This entirely reverses 
the conditions and answers all of the 
arguments originally advanced against 
the method under consideration. 

My own attention was called to this 



TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 113 

in a house which I recently leased 
for a few months' occupation. It was 
necessary to make some changes in the 
plumbing work, but it was desirable to 
make them inexpensive. There was a 
good 4-inch lead trap under the water- 
closet, firmly secured beneath the floor. 
The bath and basin were also trapped by 
it. To make a radical change would be 
costly. The opinion of the plumber 
coincided with my own, which was that 
with a hopper closet with most copious 
flushing — at least five times the volume 
of the contents of the trap being dis- 
charged through it at each use of the 
closet — the sealing water after use must 
be at least entirely safe as a seal for 
the other vessels. I determined to try 
the experiment. I watched it closely 
throughout the whole winter and found 
the arrangement entirely unobjectionable. 
It is true that the waste-pipes in both 



114 TRAPS AND TRAP VENTILATION. 

cases were three or four feet long and 
doubtless they were somewhat coated with 
soap and other impurities, but there was 
no circulation of air through them. The 
slight gaseous result of decomposition was 
so diluted that at no time, even after the 
bath-room had been tightly closed all 
night, was there any other odor than is 
usually delivered into the room by the 
overflow pipes of the bath and basin 
through which there is a circulation of 
air. 

Let me repeat that I do not to-day 
advise a return to this old method, but I 
believe that it is worthy of careful consid- 
eration. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

putnam's trap. 

AS an incidental result of his experi- 
ments on siphonage, Mr. Putnam, by 
gradual stages, arrived at the invention of 
a trap which seems to be a practical one, 
and which, subjected to tests that were 
sufficient to break the seal of any ordinary 
trap even with fair back-ventilation, main- 
tained its seal undisturbed without being 
ventilated. The theory followed is this : 
Siphonage is due to the rapid movement 
through the trap of air driven in by 
atmospheric pressure, to fill the partial 
vacuum formed by the withdrawal of air 
from the pipe beyond the trap by the 
inductive effect of flowing water ; the first 



n6 PUTNAM'S TRAP. 

tendency of the current thus produced is 
to carry the sealing-water with it. 

In a perfectly smooth curved trap the 
removal of the water may under strong 
suction be complete and almost instan- 
taneous ; in traps of irregular form, where 
the water in its course strikes against the 
wall of the trap, it is thrown back or de- 
flected from its course ; when so thrown 
back a portion of the water is still carried 
on by the current of air, but another 
portion falls away from the current and 
resumes its position in the trap. If a suf- 
ficient number of deflecting surfaces are 
presented in the course of the current of 
air, the whole of the water, after a certain 
portion of the seal has been removed, is 
retained, and the complete unsealing of 
the trap can not occur. 

Mr. Putnam's trap, the form of which 
is illustrated herewith, stands, in its normal 
condition, almost entirely full of water. 



PUTNAM'S TRAP. 



Ii 7 



Under strong siphonic action about one- 
half of this water follows the air toward 
the drain ; this amount being removed, 
the deflecting surfaces of that portion of 
the apparatus thus emptied suffice to rob 





PUTNAM S TRAP 



The complete trap is shown at a. Its different parts are shown in the 
cuts b, c, and d. The parts c and d may easily be removed for cleansing 
without the aid of a plumber. 

the air-current of its spray, and under no 
test that has yet been applied, with an 
open-topped soil-pipe, can the seal be 
broken. The interior of the trap is well 
exposed to view, and the arrangement 
for cleaning in case of need is simple. 
The trouble of an occasional unscrewing 



Il8 PUTNAM'S TRAP. 

of the glass cap to remove an obstruc- 
tion would be a very small price to pay 
for the absolute security which Mr. Putnam 
seems to have achieved.* 

This trap, or something like it, may 
probably come into universal use for 
wash-stands, baths, and laundry-tubs, — 
for urinals, also, where separate urinals 
are used. For water-closets it cannot 
take the place of the exposed trap of 
which the bowl constitutes one arm. For 
kitchen and pantry sinks I consider my 
own device better. 

I have been using for some years past 
one form or other of mechanical trap, 
usually Bower's or Cudell's. They seem 
to be the best heretofore available, but 
they have never been entirely satisfactory. 

* Since the above was written, I have tested Mr. Putnam's 
trap, finding it effective, in withstanding siphonage, and sub- 
stantially self-cleansing. It seems to me the best trap that I 
have seen. 



PUTNAM'S TRAP. 119 

If the Putnam trap is not the success that 
I trust to its being, these perhaps will 
remain our best resource for a time. 
Whether compelled by local law to venti- 
late traps or not, I should not depend on 
ventilation, in the conviction that the 
simple S trap, as ordinarily constructed 
•and as ordinarily ventilated, is totally 
unreliable. - 

If compelled by law to construct the 
prescribed "back-ventilation," I should be 
tempted after its completion, to make the 
system inoperative by closing the main 
ventilation pipe at some point near its 
upper end. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PLUMBING APPLIANCES. 

CONCERNING patented apparatus, it 
is proper for me to explain the fact 
that in the following pages, among other 
things, I set forth somewhat in detail in- 
ventions of my own, which are patented, 
and by the sale of which I should profit. 
Such a course is naturally open to criti- 
cism, and such a position is always one of 
embarrassment. It is the usual course 
to describe the various appliances in com- 
mon use, mentioning one's own only inci- 
dentally, and this would doubtless be 
thought by many persons to be the proper 
one for me to pursue. 



PL UMBING APPLIANCES. I 2 1 

It seems to me on reflection, however, 
the only justification for the writing of 
this book is to communicate to the public 
the best advice I have to offer. 

My attention has been given for many 
years to details of house-drainage as a 
matter of business, not of philanthropy. 
I have had occasion to study closely, and 
to adopt and discard, one after another, 
a long series of plumbing appliances — 
things that have come up and gone down 
in the rapidly improving art which ten 
years ago was an extremely crude one, 
and in which perfection has as yet by no 
means been attained. 

I might describe this succession of im- 
provements, and indicate the quality, 
promise, and defect of each. Such infor- 
mation may be found, by those who desire 
it, very well set forth in the rather copi- 
ous modern literature of the subject. The 
space at my disposal here would hardly 



122 PL UMBING A PPLIA NCES. 

suffice for a bare cataloguing of plumb- 
ing improvements. 

My own devices were in no case in- 
vented with a view to securing a valuable 
patent, nor for any other purpose than to 
improve my own professional practice. 
The few of these devices which have ap- 
proved themselves to my later judgment, 
and which I am now introducing in my 
work, I have patented to secure an inci- 
dental commercial advantage. I shall 
therefore describe them without hesita- 
tion and without further comment, treat- 
ing them exactly as I treat such of the 
inventions of others as I believe to be 
good. I shall trust to the good sense of 
the reader not to misunderstand my mo. 
tive. 

Special appliances for carrying out the 
plumber's art in the drainage of houses 
are to be numbered by hundreds. Inven- 
tion has taken advantage of a growing 



PL UMBING APPLIANCES. 1 2 3 

demand for the attainment of additional 
security against the invasion of drain-air, 
and has literally run wild. " Sewer-gas " 
has been made to do full duty as a cause 
of public alarm. The shops and the cat- 
alogues and the professional papers and 
books are full of an embarrassing variety 
of all manner of devices. 

Many of these inventions are great 
improvements on their predecessors, but 
many are their predecessors under new 
names and with new complications. Few 
of them have been made with regard for 
what seems to be the most imperative 
need of the work — simplicity. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SIMPLICITY. 

WE should especially seek the greatest 
possible simplicity, not only in 
detail but in general scheme. While the 
market offers a separate vessel for each 
possible separate use, the wisest course 
seems to be to reduce the number of ves- 
sels and to concentrate the various uses 
as much as may be. For example, I 
should, whenever possible, avoid the need 
for urinals, slop-sinks, and hoppers, by 
constructing the water-closet in such a 
manner as to supply all of these demands 
in a convenient and acceptable way, thus 
securing, incidentally, the most frequent 



SIMPLICITY. 125 

change of its trapping-water and the most 
frequent flushing of its outlet. 

The urinal is almost invariably the 
most odorous vessel in the house. The 
slop-hopper is generally a receptacle for 
rags and rubbish, in a dark, out-of-the- 
way, uninspected closet ; and the sink for 
drawing water is, in less degree, open to 
similar objection. 

With a self-closing faucet for drawing 
water, there need be provided for the 
protection of the ceiling below only such 
simple means of outlet — like a safe-pipe 
opening through the ceiling of the base- 
ment or over a sink or a water-closet cis- 
tern — as will carry the slight drip that 
may come from an accidental leak. Or- 
dinarily there is no serious objection to 
arranging to draw water through the 
bath-cock, if this is placed, as it should be, 
at the top of the tub. 

Objections to this concentration of 



126 SIMPLICITY. 

uses, and to the abandonment of the pro- 
vision of a separate vessel for each sep- 
arate use, are confined mainly to trade 
journals, published in the interest of 
manufacturers and plumbers whose profits, 
it is thought, might be affected by the 
reduction. Their argument is that "cost 
is secondary to ample convenience." 

While it is important to avoid unneces- 
sary cost, the economical argument is the 
least of all the reasons for what is here 
proposed. The real and controlling argu- 
ment is based on the great advantage of 
having the fewest possible points requir- 
ing inspection and care and to secure the 
most frequent possible use of every inlet 
into the drainage system. Reasonable 
convenience being always kept in view, 
three water-closets in an ordinary house 
are much better than half a dozen ; and 
the same principle holds throughout the 
whole range of plumbing appliances. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



WASH-STANDS. 



STATIONARY wash-stands, where 
they should be used at all — in bath- 
rooms and lavatories mainly — should, like 
all other fixtures of the kind, have the space 
under the slab fully exposed to view, so 
that the trap and all pipes may be seen 
at all times, and so that neither by acci- 
dent nor by stealth may there be created 
the hidden untidy condition which is 
almost universal with the tight, unven- 
tilated inclosed spaces generally used. 

The basin itself, as now constructed, has 
a hidden overflow which it is very difficult, 
if not impossible, to cleanse, and it has 
generally either a plug and chain to close 



128 WA SH-STANDS. 

its outlet, or a side plug operated by a 
knob above the slab. Both of these are 
wholly objectionable. The links of the 
chain and the ring and attachments of the 
plug become fouled with soapy matters, 
and it is difficult to cleanse them. Prac- 
tically, they are generally nasty. 

To shake a filthy chain in a basin of 
clear water would be a very untidy pre- 
liminary to ablution. This is substantially 
what we do when we let water run with 
some force directly into a basin in which 
a dirty chain is hanging. 

The side plug seems to be much nicer ; 
it is really less nice. There is a befouled 
waste-pipe leading from the outlet to the 
plug, in communication with a slime-coated 
overflow channel rising above the plug. 
This pipe it is practically impossible to 
cleanse. Its filth is constantly undergoing 
decomposition. Whenever the bowl is 
emptied it becomes filled with air ; when 



WA SH-STANDS. 1 2 9 

the plug is closed and the bowl is filled, 
this air is driven in bubbles with some 
violence into the bowl. Not infrequently 
flakes of the sliming matter come with it. 

The only really cleanly device that I 
have yet seen is what is known as 
" Weavers Waste," where the plug fits 
closely into the outlet, forming part of 
the bottom of the basin, and is opened by 
being raised from below. It does not get 
over, and it may slightly aggravate, the 
objection to the hidden overflow ; but it 
does enable us to wash in a clean vessel. 

I am now experimenting with a small 
fixed basin which is simply an earthenware 
funnel without plug or overflow. At its 
top stands a movable wash-bowl to be 
filled from the supply-cocks in the usual 
manner. The bowl is emptied by pour- 
ing its contents into the funnel. That 
this will prove a practical success is not 
yet demonstrated. 



13© WASH-STANDS. 

Since the publication of the above in 
the Century Magazine, two or three de- 
vices to avoid the hidden overflow have 
come to my notice. One of them, the 
invention of Mr. A. W. Hoffman, of Buf- 
falo, is an actual stand-pipe, substantially 
the same as the standing overflow of the 
bath-tub illustrated on page 155. Its pecu- 
liarity is that, instead of standing straight 
up in the middle of the basin, where it 
would be in the way, it follows the curve 
of the side of the basin opening at the 
usual position of the overflow holes — 
which he omits — and is quite out of the 
way. It is entirely removable, like the 
bath-tub overflow, and it constitutes the 
only plug at the outlet. It is worth 
trying. 



CHAPTER XX. 



WATER-CLOSETS. 



WATER-CLOSETS have, naturally, 
been the subject of more ingenuity, 
and of more argument, than any thing 
else connected with the subject of house- 
drainage. 

It is hardly necessary at this late date 
to say any thing to the limited public 
which reads on such subjects about the 
absolute inadmissibility of the almost 
universal pan-closet, which is still the 
great favorite of landlords and of build- 
ers, and which, in spite of its complication 
and intricacy, is still, owing to the great 
demand for it, sold more cheaply, and 
therefore more widely, than any other. 



132 WA TER- CLOSE TS. 

It is enough to say that those who care 
for safety in drainage works should neither 
adopt it in new construction nor retain it 
where it already exists. It is not, and it 
can not be made, a safe water-closet. To 
a greater or less degree, the objections to 
it hold in the case of every other closet 
in the market which has, anywhere in the 
course of its outlet, any thing of the nature 
of a valve or moving part. 

It is not an overstatement of the uni- 
versal conviction of skillful sanitarians to 
say that the range of unexceptionable 
water-closets is limited to such as have a 
free water-way from the bowl to the soil- 
pipe, depending for their trapping, and 
in some cases for their holding of a bowl- 
ful of water, on an elevation of the over- 
flow point. These may be classed in a 
general way as " hopper" closets. The 
simplest form of this closet is a funnel- 
shaped vase reaching from the floor to 



WA TER- CL OSETS. 133 

the seat. At the bottom it is connected 
with an S trap, having a depth of seal 
generally of from three-fourths of an inch 
to an inch and a half. This is a cheap 
and good utensil for the commoner uses. 
It is made of earthenware or of enameled 
iron, and in its best form its rear portion 
is nearly or quite vertical. What is 
known as the " short hopper," made of 
iron or of earthenware, has a shallow 
bowl, with a trap rising at its side and 
entirely above the floor. These are the 
best of the cheap closets. 

Pursuing the intention already an- 
nounced, to avoid any thing like a cata- 
loguing of plumbers' supplies, and 
referring to what has already been said 
about my own inventions, I give here- 
with, as an illustration of the better class 
of closets, a vertical cross-section of the 
Dececo closet with its trap and discharg- 
ing siphon. In this closet I have tried 



1 34 WA TER- CLOSE TS. 

to overcome the objections to the 
mechanical or valve closets, while retain- 
ing the very great advantages of a deep 
bowlful of water for the reception of 
deposits and for the suppression of odor. 

The closet has a seal about four inches 
deep, a depth of water of nearly seven 
inches, disposed in the most useful way, 
and a sufficient submersion of the front 
part of the bowl. While it is possible 
under strong siphonage to reduce the 
depth of its water considerably, it is not 
possible, under any conditions that can 
occur in practice, to break its seal, the 
rising limb being sufficiently large to give 
an adequate passage to a continuous 
stream of air without removing the water 
to such a point as to unseal the trap. It 
has the further advantage that its seal is 
in full view and is always under control. 
When it seems to be right it is right. 

The peculiar operation on which it 



WA TER-CLOSE TS. 



*35 



depends for its discharge is due to the 
use of an outlet weir below the floor, 
which is the invention of Mr. Rogers 




FIG. 6.— THE DECECO WATER-CLOSET. 

Field, an English engineer. It is, in fact, 
a modified Field's flush tank. 

The outer or discharging limb of the 
syphon reaches down into the weir- 



136 WA TER-CLOSE TS. 

chamber. The depth of seal is the dis- 
tance from the surface of the water in the 
bowl to the top of the intake X y and this 
is regulated by the height of the overflow 
point O. The closet is supplied with 
water through an ordinary flushing-rim, 
connected with a service-box or cistern 
overhead. The cistern is operated by a 
pendent pull. When the pull is drawn 
down, a copious supply of water flows 
into all parts of the bowl through the 
flushing-rim, washing it completely and 
raising the level of its water rapidly. 
The surplus overflows at O faster than it 
can be discharged over the weir-top T, 
without rising so high as to close the 
opening at Y. This closure shuts off the 
air in the siphon from the air in the soil- 
pipe, with which it is ordinarily in com- 
munication. The water flowing through 
the long limb of the siphon, in an irregu- 
lar stream, carries the air with it, and 



WA TER-CLOSE TS. 137 

there is soon established a strong siphon 
action, which continues until the water in 
the bowl, into which a strong stream con- 
tinues to flow, descends below the top of 
the intake X. Then air is admitted at 
this point, and the flow through the 
siphon is checked. The discharge at T 
continuing, the water in the weir-chamber 
soon falls sufficiently to allow air to enter 
at Y and empty the siphon. The water 
in that part of the siphon between X 
and O falls back and establishes an im- 
mediate hydraulic seal at the intake. 
The service-box is so arranged that after 
the main supply is stopped a small stream 
continues to be discharged into the bowl 
until it is filled to the height of the over- 
flow point. 

It was evident from long and success- 
ful experience with Field's flush-tank, 
that the principle on which this closet is 
constructed is a perfectly correct one. 



138 WA TER-CLOSE TS. 

It has undergone few changes since its 
original construction three years ago, 
and the several hundred closets now in 
use are invariably satisfactory, so far as 
reported. 

The first ones made, five in number, 
were set up in the White House after the 
removal of the President in 1881. They 
are still perfectly successful in their work- 
ing. After ample trial for servants' use, 
and for more than a year in a girls' board- 
ing-school, an experimental one is now 
being tested with the rough use and rough 
handling of the operatives of a spinning- 
mill. It has, during the seven weeks since 
it was put in, given complete satisfaction. 
So far as I can see, this closet accom- 
plishes perfectly every purpose for which 
a water-closet, slop-hopper, or urinal is 
required. 

In practice, it uses at each opera- 
tion over two and a half gallons of 



WATER-CLOSETS. 139 

water, which gives a thorough flushing to 
the soil-pipe and drain, while it has the 
great advantage of sending a good part 
of its water into the soil-pipe in ad- 
vance of the foul matter, lubricating their 
passage through the whole drainage sys- 
tem. Although this considerable volume 
of water is essential to its complete 
efficiency, the closet may be emptied by 
pouring into it suddenly less than two 
quarts of water. A large pail of slops 
thrown in as rapidly as possible fails to 
overflow it, and barrels of water might be 
poured through it in succession as fast as 
the three-inch outlet can discharge it. 

The setting of water-closets in the best 
manner is most easily secured when hop- 
per or other plain closets are used ; that 
is, closets with no machinery under the 
seat. By the best manner, I mean such 
setting as requires the minimum of car- 
pentry, preferably nothing whatever but 



14° WA TER- CL SE TS. 

a single well-finished hard-wood plank 
with a hole through it, resting on cleats 
at the sides and hinged to be turned back 
out of the way. It is better that there 
should not even be a cover to the hole. 
The entire closet, inside and out, should 
be as thoroughly exposed to view, to 
ventilation, and to perfect cleansing as 
possible. 

If the floor and back and side walls be 
covered with glazed tiles — preferably 
white — so much the better ; but a cheap 
and satisfactory setting is secured by a 
slate flooring - with hard-wood finish 
around the sides. Even oil-cloth on the 
floor, and the ordinary base-board and 
plaster at the sides and back, answer a 
very good purpose ; the great thing is to 
have a perfect exposure to sight and to 
air. 

The costly housing-in of the closet by 
a close seat and cover and a close riser in 



WA TER- CLOSE TS. 141 

front may serve a very good purpose as 
an ornamental piece of cabinet-work, but 
it too often covers a condition of 
things that no fastidious housekeeper 
would knowingly tolerate. Sloppage, 
leakage, and the tainted air rising through 
the irregular holes left for the soil-pipe, 
unite to make this space untidy and in 
every way objectionable. Some sort of 
housing-in is necessary with closets which 
have machinery about them, but the 
whole class of hopper closets may be 
entirely free from any thing or any con- 
dition to make such concealment desir- 
able. 

I would by no means imply that there 
are not a number of other very good 
closets in the market besides those here 
described. I have had in use in my 
own house, for five years, a closet which 
holds a reasonable depth of water 
in the bowl, which has a high overflow 



142 WA TER-CLOSE TS. 

point, and of which the contents are 
driven out by a strong jet of water shoot- 
ing up the outlet pipe and over the over- 
flow. With careful attention, largely 
made necessary by the improper shape of 
the bowl, this closet is so satisfactory 
that I have not thought it worth while to 
take it out and substitute the Dececo. 
There are other closets holding water to 
a considerable depth by the same method 
of elevating the overflow point and dis- 
charged by one means or another which 
are quite acceptable. 

It is possible that my decided prefer- 
ence for the Dececo is only an incident of 
paternity — but it is a decided preference 
nevertheless. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

SINKS. 

KITCHEN and pantry sinks are used 
for the discharge of matters which 
in their original condition are not offen- 
sive. They are, therefore, in the popular 
estimation, of much less serious conse- 
quence to the sanitary condition of the 
house than are water-closets. This tem- 
porarily different condition, however, of 
the matters which they receive, very soon 
gives place to a similar condition of the 
matters which they have discharged. 

After a little retention, putrefaction 
sets in, and the refuse food of the sink 
becomes as offensive and objectionable as 
does the digested food of the water-closet. 



144 SINKS. 

In the one case as in the other, it is very 
important to secure a complete removal 
of all foul matters well beyond the house 
before putrefaction. The liability to de- 
tention and deposit is much greater in 
case of the sink than in the case of the 
closet, for the reason that, with much less 
flushing, there is discharged through its 
waste-pipe a considerable amount of 
heated and temporarily liquefied grease. 

This grease passes the strainer of the 
sink and is unnoticed, but, as it cools 
along its course, it attaches itself to the 
sides of the pipe in constantly increasing 
accumulations, until the channel is often 
nearly or quite obstructed. It is by no 
means pure grease that is thus attached. 
In its congelation there are involved par- 
ticles of highly putrescible matters, and 
the ordinary kitchen-sink waste-pipe is the 
seat of a constant decomposition — mostly 
beyond the trap, and for this reason not 



SINKS. 145 

especially noticeable — but especially foul 
nevertheless. 

Not to get rid of the putrefaction, but 
to prevent the obstruction of the pipe, 
there have been invented various forms 
of grease-trap, having for their purpose 
the hardening of the grease under condi- 
tions which will allow it to be removed. 
These grease-traps would answer a better 
purpose than they do if we could depend 
on their being regularly attended to ; but 
so long as water will flow from the sink, 
servants will give themselves but little 
trouble about such accumulations. No 
accumulation for longer than a single day 
should be tolerated. 

I have employed a device that has now 
been in considerable use for several years, 
which seems to meet the requirements of 
the case quite completely. There is built 
beneath the sink, and in connection with 
it, a " flush-pot " large enough to hold 



146 SINKS. 

several gallons of water. Its top is cov- 

— ;? 



_, w ~~ ■ 




FIG. 7. — THE DECECO FLUSH-POT FOR SINKS. 

ered by a strainer, about eight inches in 



SINKS. 147 

diameter, and pierced with large holes. 
This constitutes a portion of the floor of 
the sink. The outlet of the flush-pot is 
closed with a plug, like a wash-basin plug, 
which is attached to a spindle rising 
through the strainer. The outlet is con- 
nected with the drain by a small pipe, 
having a common trap, which is useful 
only during the short periods when the 
plug is withdrawn. 

Ordinarily, the outlet stands closed. 
Water thrown into the sink flows through 
the strainer, leaving all coarser substances 
to be brushed up and burned in the range* 
Little by little, the flush-pot becomes 
filled, and during this slow process most 
of the grease becomes congealed. When 
it is nearly full, the water can be seen, 
even before it reaches the strainer. Then 

*This simple cremation of the worst elements of house-garb- 
age costs no money and little trouble. It solves one of the 
difficult domestic problems. 



148 SINKS. 

the spindle and plug are raised and held 
up until the gurgling of air through the 
trap indicates that the pot is empty. Then 
the outlet is closed and the filling begins 
again. The strainer and spindle may be 
lifted out together, exposing the whole 
interior of the flush-pot, which may thus 
be given a daily cleansing and kept in as 
good order as any other iron vessel in the 
kitchen. 

The theory of the success of this ap- 
paratus is very simple. There is abso- 
lutely nothing running through the waste- 
pipe except during the moment when the 
flush-pot is being discharged, and then 
the whole mass flows with such force as 
to carry every thing with it. 

At my own house, having occasion to 
inspect the main drain (diameter three 
inches), I found that neither a copiously 
supplied water-closet nor a bath-tub had 
such flushing effect as had the discharge 



SINKS. 149 

of the flush-pot in the kitchen. Its flow 
filled the drain more than half full with a 
stream of good velocity. 

In the first application of the flush-pot 
to pantry sinks, it was given about the 
same capacity with that of the kitchen 
sink. As, however, it is desirable to fill 
the pantry sink for washing dishes, it be- 
came necessary to waste the large volume 
needed to fill the flush-pot. To avoid 
this its capacity has now been reduced to 
about one gallon, which is enough to in- 
sure a good flow from the ordinary accu- 
mulated drippings of the sink. When 
the sink itself is filled, its contents as well 
as those of the flush-pot constitute an 
abundant flushing volume, the strainer 
being sufficiently open to allow a rapid 
flow. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. 

OVERFLOWS, intended for the safe 
removal of surplus water from bath- 
tubs, wash-bowls, etc., are necessarily on 
the house side of the trap. They are 
practically never reached by a strong 
flushing stream, and their walls accumu- 
late filth and slime to a degree that would 
hardly be believed. They constitute the 
nastiest element of modern house-drain- 
age of the better order. Perhaps they 
are not a serious source of danger, but 
they are, more often than any other part 
of the plumbing work, except the urinal, 
the source of the offensive drain-smell so 



O VERFLO WS AND STOP-COCKS. 151 

often observed on first coming into a 
house from the fresh air. 

In the stationary wash-basin as at pres- 
ent arranged, there seems to be no easy 
way to get over the difficulty, a difficulty 
which of itself should be a sufficient rea- 
son for excluding these fixtures from 
sleeping-rooms. The basin overflow is 
objectionable for substantially the same 
reason that the bath-tub overflow is ob- 
jectionable, though perhaps to a slighter 
degree owing to the smaller surface 
exposed to the accumulation of deposits. 

The concealed overflow of the bath-tub 
may, fortunately, be dispensed with, and 
in this case the difficulty inseparable from 
the arrangement may be obviated. It 
will, perhaps, be instructive to illustrate 
by a diagram the reason why the usual 
hidden overflow is so objectionable. 

In this cut, A is the waste-pipe at the 
bottom of the tub, by which its contents 



152 VERFL OWS AND S TOP- CO CKS. 

are discharged on the withdrawal of the 
plug. B is the overflow pipe, its connec- 
tion with the tub being through a per- 
forated screen. C is the trap by which 




FIG. 8. — HIDDEN OVERFLOW OF BATH. 



the waste-pipe is shut off from the drain- 
age system, and which has incidentally 
the effect of retarding the flow of water 
through the waste-pipe. If we suppose 



OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. 153 

the tub to be filled to the level of the 
overflow and its waste-plug to be removed, 
the water will immediately rise in the 
overflow pipe to very nearly its height in 
the tub. It is of course impregnated with 
the impurities of the water in the bath. 
Furthermore, the lighter particles of 
organic matter flowing through the waste 
will, some of them, rise by their levity 
into the overflow pipe. The water rushes 
up into this pipe with much force, but it 
descends only very slowly as the level in 
the bath descends, so that at each opera- 
tion there is a tendency to deposit adhe- 
sive matters to its walls. What is so de- 
posited decomposes and escapes little by 
little in a gaseous form through the per- 
forated screen into the air of the room. 
There is a free circulation of air through 
the pipe when the plug is out. The 
amount of these decomposing mat- 
ters is somewhat increased, though prob- 



154 O VERFL OWS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. 

ably not very much, by floating particles 
passing through the screen when the 
overflow is performing its legitimate func- 
tion. 

This is the simplest statement of the 
proposition, and this is perhaps the least 
objectionable form of hidden overflow. 
Where the waste-pipe is closed at the 
bottom of the overflow by a plug or valve 
attached to a spindle rising through the 
overflow-pipe — a very favorite device 
with some plumbers, and already described 
in connection with wash-bowls — the diffi- 
culty is in every way aggravated and the 
amount of fouled surface is much in- 
creased. The inherent defect here illus- 
trated attaches to every overflow of this 
general character connected with any part 
of the plumbing work. 

In the case of a bath-tub it may very 
easily be avoided, as shown in the next 
diagram, by doing away entirely with the 



OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. 



155 



overflow-pipe B and its perforated screen, 
and using for the closure of the waste- 
outlet A y as a substitute for the ordinary 
plug, a pipe fitting into the outlet and 




00 

FIG. 9. — STANDING OVERFLOW AND PLUG FOR BATH. 

rising to the height desired for the water 
in the bath. If the upper end of this 
pipe be given a trumpet-shaped opening, 
its capacity will be increased. Unless 



156 VERFL OWS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. 

Hoffman's overflow prove successful, such 
a substitute for the ordinary overflow is 
not applicable to wash-bowls as now 
made. It may be made available for pan- 
try sinks if the pipe can be so placed in a 
corner as not to interfere with the proper 
use of the vessel. If its universal adop- 
tion for bath-tubs could be secured, a 
very wide-spread source of mild nuisance 
would be done away with. Fortunately, 
it is far cheaper than any arrangement for 
which it is a substitute. It is one of its 
incidental uses that it enables us to get 
rid of the dirty chain attached to the 
ordinary bath-plug. Weaver's waste, 
which is one of the best devices for clos- 
ing the outlet of an ordinary wash-basin, 
is also arranged for the bath. In neither 
case does it in any respect modify the 
objection to a foul overflow. 

Stop-cocks need no special notice in 
this paper, except in connection with 



VERFL OWS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. 1 5 7 

bath-tubs. Most, if not all, of the En- 
glish earthenware bath-tubs imported into 
this country, and many even of the plan- 
ished, copper, and enameled iron tubs 
made here, are furnished with an ingeni- 
ous device for delivering the supply near 
the bottom of the tub in such a manner 
as to mix the hot and cold water at the 
delivery and to admit the supply with 
little noise. The last may be an advan- 
tage. The first may be perfectly accom- 
plished by delivering the hot and cold 
water through a single nozzle at the top 
of the tub in a convenient position for 
drawing water for other uses. 

There are doubtless many cases where 
the bottom delivery of the supply may be 
free from sanitary objections, but they 
are fewer than would be supposed, and it 
seems strange that the frequent serious 
objection to the arrangement should have 
been so generally overlooked. This bot- 



158 OVERFLOWS AND STOP-COCKS. 

torn delivery is substantially a cock for 
drawing water, and all who use such 
cocks for filling wash-bowls must have 
noticed a frequent indraft of air when the 
cock is open. Water being drawn from 
the lower part of the supply-pipe, the 
head in the upper part is annihilated, and 
if a cock is opened the water falls in the 
supply-pipe, air rushing in to take its place. 
The indraft of air is not of much con- 
sequence, but the indraft of a pipeful of 
dirty water from a bath-tub does not sug- 
gest a pleasant modification of the quality 
of the water-supply of the house. In 
this case, as in many others, an apparent 
mechanical improvement, securing only 
incidental benefits, should be discouraged. 
In my judgment the only perfectly safe 
and satisfactory arrangement for baths 
thus far devised is one by which the 
water is drawn through a faucet above 
the water-line, and by which the outlet is 



O VERFL OWS A ND S TOP- CO CKS. 1 5 9 

closed by a stand-pipe serving as the only 
overflow of the tub. 

Laundry trays, as they are now almost 
universally arranged, are hardly to be 
regarded as a conspicuous element of the 
sanitary works of a house. There are 
few cases in which we find any thing about 
them that is seriously objectionable. 
With them, as with sinks, water-closets, 
and wash-basins, it is best to avoid 
all unnecessary carpentry. It is, of 
course, best that they should be made of 
some other material than wood — either 
slate, soapstone, cement, or earthenware. 
Earthenware tubs, supported on galvan- 
ized iron legs and surrounded by a sim- 
ple border of hard wood, seem to ask 
for no improvement. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

AN EXAMPLE OF SIMPLE AND GOOD WORK. 

SIMPLICITY in house-drainage, and 
a marked contrast to the multipli- 
cation and complication so often found 
in the better class of buildings, are illus- 
trated in the case of a very fine and 
costly house, the plumbing of which I 
am now superintending. 

It has in the basement one kitchen- 
sink with the flush-pot, and four laundry- 
tubs. The main soil-pipe runs under the 
basement floor near both of these ; it is 
of extra-heavy iron, with the joints 
leaded and tested, under water pressure, 
to absolute tightness. It is then, so far 
as it lies below the floor, completely 



AN EXAMPLE OF GOOD WORK. 161 

encased in Portland cement mortar, and 
this, again, in well made concrete ; it 
turns up near the laundry-tubs, and near 
the ceiling it receives a branch pipe com- 
ing from a lavatory on the floor, twenty- 
five feet away ; it then passes through 
the floor and receives the waste of the 
flush-pot of the pantry-sink ; rising to the 
ceiling, it receives the waste of a bath- 
tub and wash-stand on one side, and on 
the other the waste of a Dececo water- 
closet and wash-stand ; passing through 
the next floor, it receives the wastes of 
the fixtures in the servants' bath-room — 
a straight hopper closet, a bath-tub, and a 
wash-stand ; above the ceiling of that 
room, its four inches size is increased to 
six inches, and it passes with this larger 
diameter a short distance through the 
roof, its top being closed by a large wire 
basket inserted in the hub of the six-inch 
pipe ; the branch pipe under the ceiling 



162 AN EXAMPLE OP GOOD WORK. 

of the cellar is connected with a Dececo 
closet and a wash-stand in the lavatory, 
and is continued up, without other con- 
nections, to its increaser and a six-inch 
top joint through the roof. 

This is the full complement of the 
drainage appliances which, in accordance 
with modern ideas, it was thought neces- 
sary and wise to introduce into a house 
which, even five years ago would have 
had twice as many closets and baths, and 
at least four times as many wash-basins, 
to say nothing of two or three urinals 
and one or two house-maid's sinks. The 
whole cost of the work to be done, 
including all hot and cold water-supply, 
and the outside connection with the 
sewer of six roof-water conductors, is 
just about one thousand dollars. Under 
the old method, supposing the same 
material and workmanship to be used, 
and considering the long lateral waste- 



AN EX AMBLE OF GOOD WORK. 163 

pipes and hot and cold water and cir- 
culation pipes of the different baths and 
basins, the cost would hardly have been 
less than twenty-five hundred dollars. 
The saving of cost effected is, in my 
judgment, of much less consequence than 
the simplicity secured. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

OWNERS, ARCHITECTS AND PLUMBERS. 

IT has already been said that the 
character and arrangement of the 
plumbing work of modern houses are 
much more controlled by plumbers than 
by any body else. This is generally quite 
as true with reference to houses built 
under the advice and direction of archi- 
tects as in other cases. 

There are a few architects who take a 
lively interest in sanitary works, but they 
are very few. The fact is, that an archi- 
tect is, generally, either disqualified or 
disinclined, by nature or by training, 
for the minute attention to hidden details 
which the proper control of house drain- 



WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 1 65 

age would require of him. It is not to 
be expected that a man who has made 
himself a safe guide and leader of public 
taste, who has acquired a mastery of the 
engineering problems involved in safe 
and economical construction, and who has 
learned how to contract a client's desires 
to the requirements of space and of price, 
should have been able to keep himself 
au courant with the rapidly growing 
improvements of an art, which, twenty 
years ago, was only a trade. 

As a matter of fact, the architect rarely 
knows or cares any thing about the 
plumbing of a house beyond the selection 
of the spaces to be given to its fixtures. 
He gives the plumber a rough idea as to 
where certain fixtures are to be placed, 
and as to their general style. Beyond 
that — I am not speaking of all architects, 
but of architects as a class — he is gener- 
ally indifferent to the whole business. 



166 WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 

The result is — as it may be. Some 
plumbers are capable of writing good 
specifications and some are not. It by 
no means always happens that the best 
plumbers and the best architects work 
in conjunction. 

I write more feelingly on this subject, 
because I have recently, in more than one 
instance, on being called to take charge 
of the drainage of very fine houses already 
in course of construction, had the plumb- 
ing specifications submitted to me. They 
happen in all cases to have been written 
for places where the Board of Health has 
established no formula for the work and 
has furnished no printed blanks. Not 
one of them would have done fair credit 
to an intelligent plumber of the year of 
our Lord, 1870. In every case an 
unnecessary amount of work would have 
been done and much of it would have 
been unsafe when it was done. The 



WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 1 67 

question often comes up, in the practice 
of an engineer of sanitary drainage, as to 
whether or not to change such work as 
these specifications provided for, it being 
already constructed and in operation. 
No one who knew the first rudiments of 
the business, would think of introducing 
it into a new building. 

In one case, I was called to a house so 
near completion that all of its main pipes 
had been put in place, and a wilderness 
of pipes they were. I recommended that 
they be removed, all but one of them, 
and that a fresh start be taken. The 
owner referred the question, as owners so 
often will, to the arbitration of dollars 
and cents. An estimate, made by the 
plumber who had done the work, showed 
that it would be somewhat cheaper to 
wipe it all out, begin again, and follow 
my plans, than to finish what he had 
begun, according to his own. 



168 OWNERS, ARCHITECTS, PLUMBERS. 

The criticism here is in no sense 
against the plumber nor against the 
architect, but against the sy 'stem. If an 
architect tells his client that he prefers to 
have an expert to take charge of the 
plumbing, the client may object to pay- 
ing an extra fee or, as it seems to him, 
two fees for the same work. The archi- 
tect, of course, can not be expected to pay 
for the extra services, so he follows the 
old course of turning the matter over to 
his plumber, and, very properly, justifies 
himself with the sufficient plea of Usage. 
As an incidental result, the owner gener- 
ally pays considerably more for the toler- 
able work that he gets than he would pay, 
fees included, for the more perfect work 
that he might get. 

Another point in this connection is of 
great interest. It is being actively dis- 
cussed by the better plumbers and by the 
sanitary journals. It is that plumbing 



WNER S y AR CHITE C TS, PL UMBERS. 1 6 9 

work should, at least, never be done at 
second hand. That is, that the whole 
job should not be given to a contractor, 
allowing him, in his turn, to contract out 
the plumbing work. Indeed, this results 
so generally in positive injury to the 
health of the people that it would seem a 
proper subject for legislative prohibition. 
Naturally, all that the building con- 
tractor is responsible for is, that water 
shall flow and waste shall run, without 
bursting the pipes or destroying the ceil- 
ings, until after the house has been 
accepted and taken off his hands. His 
only connection with the enterprise is a 
business connection and his only motive 
is his business interest. He builds the 
house to make money on it, and the more 
cheaply he can get the architect's require- 
ments for water-closets, baths, tubs, sinks, 
etc., complied with, the more money he 
will make. 



170 WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 

While this course of sub-letting is bad 
enough in the case of houses built for 
immediate sale, or in the case of tenement 
houses, it is in a certain way explicable ; 
but that any man who is building a house 
for his own occupation, should permit 
this vital element of its safety as a habita- 
tion, to become the object of dicker and 
flint-skinning between two men who care 
only to make what money they can out 
of it, is most incomprehensible. 

If it is suspected that what is here 
written is written with a view to the pecu- 
niary interest of my own profession, with 
its rapidly growing membership, I confess 
at once and most frankly that the suspi- 
cion is well founded. I should not have 
taken the trouble to write this book for 
the questionable compensation it offers in 
the way of copyright. I have written it 
because I think it may advance the inter- 
ests of engineers. If that should be 



WNERS, ARCHITECTS, PL UMBERS. 1 7 1 

thought an improper or a selfish motive, 
let me say that I trust it will also, and in 
much greater degree, advance the inter- 
ests of all who live in houses which have 
or which need drainage works of any 
kind. That it will also benefit the better 
class of plumbers, ought not to be 
doubtful. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

SEWAGE DISPOSAL FOR ISOLATED HOUSES. 

THOSE who live in isolated houses, in 
the country and in the smaller 
towns, generally solve the whole prob- 
lem of sewage disposal by the simple 
formula, " Out of sight, out of mind." 
The universal remedy is a hole in the 
ground into which every thing in the 
shape of liquid wastes is delivered. The 
only criticism that most people apply to 
the apparatus relates to the frequency 
with which it requires to be emptied 
and to the cost of the operation. 

What goes on in the cesspool, and in 
the ground about it, is entirely unheeded. 
So long as the overflow is disposed of, 



SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 1 7 3 

the devil may care what the hidden pro- 
cesses of disposal are. Unfortunately, 
the devil does care, and much of the 
worst work that he effects, in his assault 
on the health of his unwitting subjects, 
has its starting point in the common 
cesspool. The worst sewer in the world 
is rarely so bad as the usual cesspool. 
In comparison with it, a sewer that would 
be regarded as very foul is purity itself. 

The cesspool works its injury chiefly 
in three directions : 

A. It holds an accumulation of filth 
of the worst character, in a state of 
active putrefaction, giving off gases pro- 
duced by a decomposition that takes 
place under conditions of the worst sort. 
These gases can not be entirely sup- 
pressed while a channel remains open 
for the admission of liquid to the cavern. 
Unless delivered into the atmosphere, 
which they inevitably taint, they find 



1 74 SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 

their way back more or less directly into 
the drainage system of the house. 

B. In so far as the walls of the cess- 
pools and the surrounding earth are per- 
meable to their passage these gases pol- 
lute and poison the ground air, and if 
near the house, this finds its way from 
the earth into the cellar. 

C. Its liquid leachings and ooze, en- 
riched with the soluble productions of 
a fatal putrefaction, travel through porous 
soils, through gravel or sand streaks in 
heavy ground, and through fissures in 
rocks to pollute the water of wells and 
springs even at a considerable distance. 

If the fraternity of sanitarians through- 
out the world are in accord on any one 
point, it is that the common cesspool, 
even under the best conditions, is abso- 
lutely inadmissible. Surely no house- 
holder having the least regard for the 
health of his own family, or for that of 



SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 1 75 

his neighbors, once realizing the inevitable 
condition, will tolerate its perpetuation. 
Fortunately it is no longer necessary 
that, even in connection with the simplest 
and poorest house, this dangerous nuisance 
should longer exist. The sanitary fra- 
ternity are also in full accord as to the 
general principles of an improved mode 
of disposal. 

What concerns us, in this connection, is 
a proper means for the disposal of the 
organic refuse and filth contained in the 
liquid wastes — including those of the 
water-closet and kitchen sink— of isolated 
houses which have at least a small area of 
land connected with them. 

The principle on which the best dis- 
posal thus far devised is based is this : 

The aerated upper layers of the soil are 
a universal destroyer of whatever organic 
impurities may be deposited on the sur- 
face or intermixed with the earth. Dead 



176 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 

organic matter is completely destroyed 
by natural processes of oxidation and 
nitrification, wherever, under natural con- 
ditions, it is exposed directly or indirectly 
to the action of the atmosphere in the 
soil. There is little doubt that the agents 
of destruction in this case are the bacte- 
ria of putrefaction, those all-pervading 
micro-organisms, whose increase, growth, 
and life involve the combination of 
atmospheric oxygen with the elements of 
organized matter, a combination always 
set up under conditions favorable to the 
growth of these bacteria. Aeration is a 
necessary condition of the process. 

When urine or other foul liquid is 
thrown on to the surface of the ground, it 
sinks into it and deposits on the surfaces 
of its particles the organic impurities 
which it contains. Its water, descending 
still further, has become essentially puri- 
fied. As the water sinks away, air enters 



SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 177 

to take its place, and every particle of 
soil that is coated with the waste matters 
is surrounded with air rich in oxygen. 
The bacteria, present in all fertile soils, 
combine the two — much as the respira- 
tory process of higher organisms com- 
bines the oxygen inhaled by the lungs 
with effete matters of venous blood. 

This is a slight and popular statement 
of the results of recent scientific investi- 
gation. The process is a continuous one. 
The destruction of one dose of wastes 
being accomplished the destroyers are 
ever eager for more. For their success- 
ful and continued operation it is only 
necessary that the waste matters should 
be supplied and that air should be fur- 
nished alternately. This is the principle 
on which is based the success of the sys- 
tem of sewage purification by broad 
irrigation and by intermittent downward 
filtration. It is as effective in taking care 



178 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 

of the waste of a city as of that of a 
single house, the difference being only a 
difference of degree. 

In the case under consideration, the 
disposal of the wastes of a single dwell- 
ing, generally on land very near the 
house, must necessarily be accomplished 
in a hidden and inodorous manner. The 
sanitary result would probably be com- 
plete if they were delivered intermittently 
over the surface of a lawn. Other 
considerations make it important that 
sewage be kept out of sight and that 
the distribution of the wastes be beneath 
the surface. 

The Rev. Henry Moule, the inventor 
of the Earth-Closet, seeking means for 
disposing of liquid wastes of the house- 
hold, for which the closet is not suited, 
laid agricultural drain tiles along the foot 
of a grape-vine trellis, leaving their 
joints open, so that the slops reaching the 



SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 1 7 9 

drain could escape freely into the ground. 
The influence of this subsoil irrigation 
on the growth of the vines and of grass 
was very marked and the disposal was 
complete and continuous. This was 
about 1868. Later, Mr. Rogers Field 
adopted a modification of the same 
device in disposing of the liquid wastes 
of cottages at Leatherhead, England. 
He added the important improvement of 
a flush-tank in which the liquids were 
retained until it became full, the whole 
volume being then rapidly discharged 
into the tiles. 

This was a great advance. It secured 
the uniform distribution of the liquid 
throughout the whole length of the 
drains and gave ample time, while 
the tank was refilling, for the water to 
settle completely away, allowing air to 
enter and complete the destruction of the 
impurities before the next discharge. 



180 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 

The writer, in connection with his resi- 
dence at Newport, adopted Mr. Moule's 
device as soon as it was made known, and 
added Mr. Field's improvement soon 
after the publication of his process. At 
first, a little difficulty resulted from the 
delivery of grease and flocculent matter, 
into the tiles, leading to the obstruction 
of their joints. Early in the experiment, 
it usually became necessary as often as 
once a year to lift the tiles and wash out 
their accumulations. This led to the 
interposition of a settling basin to retain 
all of these coarser matters. Later the 
settling basin was placed on the house 
side of the flush-tank to prevent the dis- 
turbance of the deposits in the former 
by the vigorous discharge of the latter. 

The house was provided with earth 
closets, but every thing not deposited in 
these was delivered to the drains, which 
were laid under a lawn adjoining the best 



SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 1 8 1 

rooms of the house and a piazza that was 
much used. The net work of drains 
began not more than fifteen feet from the 
edge of the piazza and the furthest corner 
of the section was not more than fifty 
feet away. The system worked most 
satisfactorily for eleven years, when the 
construction of a sewer in the adjoining 
street made it no longer necessary to use 
it. 

During the whole period of the experi- 
ment, the condition of the tiles and of the 
soil immediately adjoining them was 
frequently examined. If the opening were 
made immediately after the discharge of 
the tank, the earth near the drains had a 
decided odor, but all other times, even 
close to the open joints from which the 
discharge had been copious, there was 
absolutely nothing to suggest impurity. 
A handful of earth which a few hours 
before had been saturated with the foul 



1 82 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 

liquid had no other appearance or odor 
than that taken at the same depth from a 
part of the lawn entirely beyond the 
influence of the system. 

This method of disposing of waste 
liquids has been used by many engineers 
and on hundreds of places in different 
parts of the country. So far as known, 
wherever the details of the system have 
been properly regulated, the result has 
been entirely satisfactory. 

In 1876, in connection with the sewer- 
age of Lenox, Mass., there being no other 
available means, of outlet, a large flush- 
tank was built at the upper corner of a 
field near the village, and 10,000 feet of 
absorption drains were laid. From that 
time to this, the operation of the system 
has been completely successful. It has not 
been used in winter, but it has since been 
demonstrated that there is no reason why 
it might not be. 



SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 183 

At the Hotel at Bryn Mawr, Pa., a sys- 
tem even larger than that at Lenox has 
been in successful use since 1881. Here, 
the sewage had formerly been delivered 
into a brook which ran through private 
property. The change was made to avoid 
legal proceedings threatened by the 
adjoining owner. A little difficulty oc- 
curred at first from an unequal distribution 
of the flow and because of the steep grade 
necessarily given to some of the drains. 
These defects were remedied and the 
working of the whole system is now com- 
pletely successful. 

At the Woman's Prison at Sherburn, 
Mass., where about 30,000 gallons of 
sewerage is delivered per day, the con- 
ditions are extremely difficult. Only 
a small area of land at considerable eleva- 
tion could be reached, and this was of a 
very unfavorable character. The system 
here has been on the whole successful 



1 84 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 

though, owing, as is believed, to sluggish 
drainage through the heavy subsoil, the 
amount of drain tile used, 20,000 feet, 
has at times proved inadequate to the 
work. The difficulty has not yet been 
completely solved, nor is it certain that 
even more thorough drainage will enable 
the small area available to cope with 
the very large volume delivered. It is 
not unlikely that under the circumstances 
the only possible solution will be to im- 
prove the drainage of the ground as much 
as possible and to restrict the amount of 
water used in the establishment as much 
as is consistent with a proper working of 
the closets, laundry-tubs, etc. 

However, the difficulties which have 
arisen in this place have but an indirect 
bearing upon the problem now in hand. 
There are few individual houses, so far 
separated from each other that their best 
relief may not come by public sewerage, 



SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 1 85 

which have not sufficient ground about 
them for the successful application of this 
system. 

So far as the disposal of slop-water is 
concerned, in the case of houses of the 
smaller class, where expenditure in con- 
struction must be reduced as much as 
possible, I can not do better than to 
repeat here directions given in a paper 
prepared for the West Ewing Improve- 
ment Association and published by them 
in 1880: 

THE DISPOSAL OF KITCHEN SINK WASTE, 

Chamber slops and laundry water, is a question which 
has engaged the study and ingenuity of the world for 
many years. I believe that, so far as isolated 
country-houses are concerned, it has been perfectly 
accomplished by the system known as " sub-surface 
irrigation." This system is susceptible of much 
elaboration, and may be carried out in an expensive 
manner ; but its essential results may be secured 
with an expense so trifling that not even in the 
smallest tenement-house need its cost be an obstacle 



1 86 SE WA GE DISPOSAL. 

to its adoption. It is based on the fact that the 
surface soil which is within the reach of the roots 
of grass or other plants, and of the action of the 
atmosphere, is a very active destroyer of organic 
matter. A cotton rag buried a few inches under 
the surface is very soon entirely consumed by this 
action ; and all decomposable matter so placed is 
destroyed by oxidation or slow combustion as com- 
pletely, though less rapidly, as when it is thrown into 
the fire. In order to make this process continuous, 
it is necessary that there should be free access of 
air into the pores of the soil. In the case of liquid 
wastes, it is necessary that the discharge be inter- 
mittent, for when a constant small stream runs into 
the ground, saturating a small area, the entrance of 
the air is prevented and the oxidizing action is 
retarded. With even a few hours' interval between 
the two discharges, the water settles away into the 
ground, which acts as a filter, holding back all of 
its impurities, and its descent is followed by the 
entrance of fresh air, which immediately attacks 
and destroys -the retained organic matter. If the 
liquid is thrown on the top of the ground, it pro- 
duces in a short time a puddled condition of the 
surface which prevents the free entrance of air. It 
is, therefore, desirable to introduce it into the soil 



SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 187 

below the surface, allowing it to soak away in so 
gradual a manner that no puddling of the earth can 
take place. This introduction into the earth is by 
the use of common agricultural drain tiles with open 
joints, laid not more than ten inches below the sur- 
face. The intermittent action is secured by deliver- 
ing liquid wastes into these tiles, not constantly, 
but from time to time. 

In the case of a small tenement-house, where 
only two or three pailfuls of waste liquid are pro- 
duced in the course of the day, this absorption 
drain need not be more than forty feet long. It may 
be one continuous line of pipe, or it may be several 
shorter pipes branching from one main line, accord- 
ing to the space devoted to the use. It may lie 
under the grass near a row of currant bushes, under 
a grape-vine trellis, under a grass-plat, or elsewhere. 
Opening into it, there should be a box large enough 
to hold a pailful of water ; and the joints of this 
box, as well as the space around the pipe leading 
from it, should be made tight. It may be covered 
in winter as a protection against frost ; but in sum- 
mer it will be better that it should have a full 
exposure to the air. A wire cloth or other screen 
should be provided at its top to act as a strainer to 
hold back coarse matters which might obstruct the 



1 88 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 

pipe. From time to time this strainer, which should 
be movable, can be emptied into the swill-barrel, 
or its contents may be thrown upon the manure 
heap, or buried in the ground. The liquid which 
passes the strainer will enter the pipe, leach out 
into the ground and be purified. The arrangement 
described will be quite sufficient to receive the con- 
tents of one or two wash tubs ; but it should not be 
connected with the kitchen sink delivering only a 
small flow. Whatever is thrown into it should go 
with a rush, so as to reach as far as possible through 
the whole length of the drains. 

For houses of larger size, producing a greater 
amount of waste, the length of drain should be from 
one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet, includ- 
ing all branches, according to the size of the family 
and the freedom with which water is used. A uni- 
form distribution through this length of pipe can 
not be secured by throwing into it a pailful at a 
time. Some arrangement should be adopted which 
will retain water to the amount of a barrelful or 
more, and which will, when the tank becomes full, 
deliver the whole contents suddenly. The appara- 
tus best adapted for this use is known as " Field's 
Flush Tank." A much cheaper arrangement can be 
made at home, which, while not having the advan- 



SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 189 

tage of the Field automatic siphon, will secure the 
same result, if attention is given to opening and 
closing its outlet by hand. The construction of 
this tank is very simple. It is made of plank, and is 
divided into two compartments by a grease-catcher, 
which will prevent congealed grease, floating sub- 
stances and heavy matters from passing into the dis- 
charging chamber. It also has a spatter-board, to 
prevent the disturbance of the sediment, and a screen 
to hold back coarse matters. It is, in fact, a flush- 
ing tank with a grease-trap intervening between it 
and the source of supply. This interposition of a 
grease-trap is covered by a patent of my own ; but 
permission is hereby given to any member of the 
West Ewing Improvement Association to use it, 
without charge. The size of tank indicated in the 
sketch is sufficient for three hundred feet of drain. 
The capacity of its second or discharging chamber 
may be proportionately reduced or increased as the 
length of drain is made greater or less. The grease- 
trap may be attached to any waste-pipe from the 
house, or it may be filled by pouring into it the 
contents of chamber pails, wash tubs, slop pails, etc. 
The grease-trap serves to hold back all obstructing 
matters. The outlet of the discharging chamber is 
closed by a plug of wood, or by an india-rubber 



190 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 

ball ; the stopper being attached to a chain, by 
which it may be lifted whenever the discharging 
chamber becomes full. After the chamber has 
discharged itself, this outlet should be tightly 
closed. To make this arrangement automatic in its 
working, it is only necessary to substitute for the 
plug the Field Patent Siphon shown in Fig. 10. 

A little judgment will be necessary in adjusting 
this apparatus to the lay of the land. If the absorp- 
tion ground is to be placed at some distance from 
the house — and it should never be nearer than 
fifteen feet to any well from which drinking water 
is taken — it may be connected with the flush-tank 
by a vitrified pipe with very securely-cemented 
joints. These joints should first be packed with 
oakum, or with rags, to prevent cement from run- 
ning to the inside of the pipe and making rough 
points to arrest foreign substances passing through 
to them, and they should be covered with a good 
band of the very best hydraulic cement — the joints 
not being covered with earth until it is quite certain 
that they are absolutely tight. This precaution is 
especially necessary in passing near a well. The 
absorption tiles should be two inches in diameter, 
and only one foot long, in order that the joints 
may be frequent. 



SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 



191 



Description of Field's Flush-Tank. — It is 
intended to be placed immediately outside of the 
walls of the house, and to receive all of its liquid 
wastes. It is made entirely of earthenware or of 
cast iron. The liquids pass through the grating of 
the pan (B), and are discharged through a trap 
which prevents the contained air of the tank from 
escaping. (C) is a socket for a ventilating pipe to 




FIG. IO.— FIELD S FLUSH-TANK. 



carry this contained air to the top of the house. 
The tank holds about twenty or thirty gallons. 
This has no outlet save through the siphon (D). 
The outer end of the siphon enters a discharging 
trough, (F), which is made to turn to the right or 
left, so that its mouth may be directed as required 



192 SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 

to connect the tank with the line of outlet pipes. 
This trough is of a peculiar shape which assists 
small quantities of liquid in bringing the siphon 
into action, instead of merely dribbling over the 
siphon without charging it, as they otherwise would 
do, and has a cover which can be removed to give 
access for cleaning. 

When the tank is entirely filled, the pouring in of 
a few extra quarts of water, which is sure to occur 
at some time during the day, brings the siphon into 
action, and it flows copiously until the tank is 
emptied to the depth below which solid matters are 
permitted to accumulate, to be occasionally cleared 
out on removing the pan (B). 

As the sink pipe discharges over the grating of 
the trapped inlet (B) outside the house, the connec- 
tion between the drains and the house is completely 
broken, and any entry of foul air from the drain is 
rendered impossible. The top of the tank is per- 
fectly closed by means of the water joint around 
the cover, and the cover is readily removed when 
required. The inlet, moreover, forms a basin, 
which may be used for throwing down slops outside 
the house. 

When used for the disposal of house slops where no 
regular system of sewerage exists, the flush-tank 
enables all house refuse to be removed inoffen- 
sively — the bed-room slops being thrown down the 
basin at the top of the tank outside the house — and 
thus where earth or other dry closets are used for 
the excreta, this apparatus supplies a complete san- 
itary system of drainage. The concentration of the 
flow of the sewage effected by the sudden discharge 
of the tanks forces the liquid rapidly along the 
pipes, and prevents their being choked. The 
liquid can thus be distributed over a sufficient area 



SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 193 

of ground to give full opportunity for the soil to 
purify it. The tanks are ordinarily made to con- 
tain twenty or thirty gallons in addition to space 
for deposit. 

These directions should be carried out 
with some modifications, as described in 
the following pages. 

For houses of a better class, where a 
larger outlay can be afforded and where 
the best results are desired, the details of 
the system as developed in extensive 
practice should be closely adhered to. 
The arrangement of the appliances pro- 
vided for the work by Drainage Con- 
struction Company, which controls the 
patents relating to them, are set forth in 
the following chapter. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 

THE principle on which sewage is puri- 
fied and its foul matters destroyed, 
in all forms of irrigation disposal, whether 
by broad surface irrigation, by intermittent 
downward infiltration, or by sub-surface 
irrigation, have been already explained. 
So far as the sub-surface system is con- 
cerned, it is essential to success that 
the sewage should be delivered inter- 
mittently and at considerable intervals ; 
that it should be delivered near to the 
surface of the ground ; and that the 
ground should be, naturally or artificially, 
so well drained that water will descend 



S UB-SURFA CE IRRIGA TION. 1 95 

through it readily ; and that it should be 
of a sufficiently porous character for air 
to enter it freely. 

The essential element of the system is 
a flush-tank which will retain all sewage 
issuing from the house during the inter- 
vals between two successive discharges 
into the drains. This ought not to be 
less than twenty-four hours ; where the 
soil is not very free and porous, it should 
be extended, to as much as three days, ac- 
cording to the increasing closeness of the 
soil. 

The tank should be automatic in its 
action, z. e., it should not require watching 
or manual operation. There are a num- 
ber of tanks which answer the purpose. 
The most simple and effective that has 
come to my notice is the one, described 
in the last chapter, invented by Rogers 
Field, Esq., C. E., of London, which 
has a self-acting siphon, brought into 

t 



198 



SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 



action and " broken " after the discharge 
by the simple movement of the liquid flow- 
ing into and out from it. 
This tank, as modified 
in practice, is shown in 
S! ^figures 11 and 12. Its 
.j siphon is shown more in 

3 . . 

detail in figure 13. It 
consists essentially of 
the following elements. 
(1) A 2-inch iron pipe set 
with its hub downward at 
the bottom of the tank 





FIG. 13. — DETAILS OF ROGERS FIELD S SIPHON. 

and reaching to the height to which the 
tank is to be filled. (2) A 6-inch iron pipe 
set with its hub upward and closed at the 
top with a casting (X) carrying a handle 



SUBS URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 1 9 9 

leaded into place after the usual manner 
of soil pipe jointing. The lower end 
of this 6-inch pipe rests on three (3) 
standards rising from a circular piece at 
the bottom of the tank. One of these 
standards is shown at Y. This constitutes 
the siphon proper, the annular space 
between the 6-inch pipe and the 2-inch 
pipe being the receiving limb, and the 
2-inch pipe being the discharging limb. 
The water enters between the standards 
Y, rises to the top of the 2-inch pipe, flows 
over into it and is discharged through it. 
The lower end of this pipe delivers into a 
Rogers Field weir Z, a single casting of 
peculiar construction so arranged that 
with an abundant flow the outlet of the 
2-inch pipe is sealed. The contained air is 
removed by the falling water, setting up 
a true siphonic action which continues 
until the liquid in the tank is reduced to 
the bottom of the 6-inch pipe — the intake 



2 oo SUBS URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 

of the receiving limb. At this point 
air is taken into the receiving limb and 
the flow through the siphon is stopped. 
The contents of the 2-inch pipe continue 
to flow out through the weir-piece Z in 
which the water soon falls and admits air 
into the discharging limb. This causes 
the siphon to become completely emptied 
and no further flow can take place until 
the tank is again filled to the overflow 
point. 

In constructing the flush-tank, the siphon 
is set in its center for convenient access 
to it through the manhole over it. The 
receiving limb is so arranged that it can 
readily be lifted for opening the dis- 
charging limb to inspection. In replac- 
ing it, care should be taken to rest it 
securely on the three standards Y. 

Were the flow from the house pipe de- 
livered directly into the flush-tank, it 
would carry with it paper and other sub- 



S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 2 o I 

stances which would soon obstruct the 
narrow water-way of the siphon and the 
small drain tiles in the irrigation field 
beyond. To obviate this difficulty, I 
introduced some years ago a settling 
chamber to receive the house drain with 
an overflow point below the constant 
water line, so that the discharge into the 
flushtank might be only from the com- 
paratively clear liquid lying between 
the floating scum at the surface and the 
deposit of solid matter at the bottom. 

It was found in time that even this 
was not sufficient, a strong flow from the 
house drain stirring up the deposited 
matters and causing them to be carried 
through the overflow pipe in sufficient 
quantity to interfere with the proper action 
of the drains. 

As a further improvement I constructed 
in the settling chamber a vertical wall 
rising to the waterline and built level at 



2 o 2 S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 

the top. This seems to accomplish all 
that is needed. The disturbance caused 
by the house drain is confined to the first 
division of the settling chamber from 
which the surplus flows over the top of 
the wall in a thin stream, which does not 
disturb the deposits on the side from 
which the flush-tank is fed. 

The inlet from the house drain into the 
settling chamber is turned down below the 
water line, constituting a trap. The whole 
arrangement is sufficiently shown in figures 
1 1 and 1 2, being a plan and section of the 
two chambers and their appurtenances. 

The discharging chamber, or flush-tank, 
requires atmospheric pressure to drive its 
contents through the siphon. This is 
sufficiently supplied through the imper- 
fect fit of the manhole cover, but as this 
may become obstructed with ice or dirt, 
the cover may be slightly perforated to 
insure a constant supply of air. Natur- 



SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 203 

ally, the atmosphere of the flush-tank is 
foul ; but there is no circulation to bring 
it into active communication with the 
outer air. As the tank slowly fills, its 
air will be forced out imperceptibly. I 
have never known a case where the 
amount of windage necessary to work the 
tank led to any offense ; but as an extra 
precaution, it is better, if the tank stands 
very near to the house, to make a 2-inch 
hole in the side of the collar a little below 
the surface of the ground and to carry a 
line of drain tiles to a fence or bush or 
other convenient point, where it may be 
carried above the surface. 

Were the discharging chamber to be 
absolutely tight, the only access for air 
pressure would be through the settling- 
chamber, but this would cause its level to 
be carried down to the mouth of the 
overflow, carrying scum into the discharg- 
ing chamber, where the result would be 
mischievous. 



204 S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 

As an additional precaution, though 
hardly a necessary one, the collar of the 
settling chamber is made of 1 8-inch or 24- 
inch vitrified pipe, reaching down to the 
permanent water level. Its glazed sur- 
face prevents the absorption of moisture 
and impurities and the possible conse- 
quent bacterial growth upon it. Where 
the collar is built of brick it should be 
smoothly plastered with cement on the 
inside. 

The outlet from the tank is made by 
connecting a single length of 3-inch iron 
soil-pipe with the end of the weir piece Z. 
This carries it out beyond the wall of the 
tank, where it is connected with 4-inch 
vitrified pipe, with cemented joints, lead- 
ing to the irrigation field, more or less 
distant. 

For protection against frost, it is better 
that this pipe should be nearly or quite 
two feet below the surface of the ground at 



SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 205 

every point. It should have a regular 
fall from the tank to the connection of 
the drains, but the fall should be slight. 
Four inches per ioo feet (i to 300) is 
ample and is better than a steeper incli- 
nation. 

There are many cases of course where 
the ground between the flush-tank and 
the irrigation field can not be reached 
on a reasonably direct line without much 
greater fall. In such cases the steeper 
fall should cease at least 20 feet above 
the beginning of the drain tiles, and the 
remaining distance should be carried on 
a very slight grade so that the velocity 
may be checked and the delivery into the 
tiles made more gradual. 

It is immaterial whether the drain tiles 
branch out from the side of the main con- 
necting pipe or from a cross drain into 
which this enters. 

It is very desirable that the whole 



206 



SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 



system should be entirely emptied at the 
end of each discharge. Therefore the 
2-inch branches of the vitrified pipe which 
are to connect with the 2-inch tiles should 



SZCTION 



Section 




q 



4 



PLAN 




BRANCH P/EC£ 

FIG. 14. 



come out, not from the middle of the 
main pipe, as in sewer work, but from the 
extreme bottom, as shown in figure 14. 
Irregularities of the ground will some- 



SUB-SURFA CE IRRIGA TION. 207 

times make it necessary to bring these 
branch pieces very near to the surface. 
In other cases it is necessary to start the 
drain tiles out at a considerable depth. 

The rule should be followed that all 
joints should be uncemented which are 
less than 18 inches from the surface, and 
all should be cemented which are more 
than that distance from the surface, no 
matter whether they be joints of the 
vitrified or of the tile drains. 

The arrangement of the tiles in the irri- 
gation field will depend entirely on the 
formation of the surface of the ground. 
They should have a very slight fall, as a 
rule not more than 2 inches per 100 feet. 
In level ground they may be laid straight 
and exactly parallel to each other, while 
in irregular ground they must follow 
quite closely the contour of the surface. 
Occasionally artificial grading is required 
to prepare the field to receive them, but 



2o8 SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 

ordinarily by a sufficient deviation of 
direction the lines can be made to accom- 
modate themselves to the necessary slope. 

They should lie on a bed, never more 
than 1 2 inches and preferably not less than 
10 inches below the surface and their fall 
ought not to exceed 2 inches to 100 feet (1 
to 600). 

Theoretically, all that is required is to 
lay 2-inch draining tiles, slightly open at 
the joints, on a true grade and cover them 
in the usual manner. Under the best 
arrangement, however, it is at times 
necessary to lift some of the tiles to 
remove obstructions, and as the grading 
must be very carefully done and care- 
fully preserved, it is best to lay in the 
bottom of the trench permanent earthen- 
ware slabs or gutters, to preserve the 
grade. Furthermore, for perfect freedom 
of discharge, it is well to lay the tiles with 
open joints of about one quarter of an 



SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 



209 




FIG. 15. 



inch between them. Such a joint, if un- 
protected, would soon be filled by earth 
working in 
from above, as 
when the field 
is walked up- 
on. To pre- 
vent this, a 
narrow cap is 
laid over each 
joint. 

The con- 
struction and 
combi nation 
of these parts 
of the irriga- 
tion drain are 
shown in the 
illustrations. 
Figure 15 is the tile, round, two inches in 
diameter and twelve inches long. Figure 
16 is the gutter of the same length, quite 




FIG. 16. 

SECTION OF 



C* 





%?*■ 



FIG. 17. 



QVTTER T/LE 
4NO OAR 

FIG. 18. 



2 1 o S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 

shallow, and made of a larger radius than 
the outer circumference of the tile, so that 
it will close the joint only along the im- 
mediate line at the bottom. Figure 1 7 
is the cap, two and one-half inches long, 
also of larger radius than the tile. Figure 

18 is a cross-section showing the combina- 
tion of these three elements, and figure 

19 shows the manner in which they are 
laid in the ground. 

To illustrate more fully the manner in 
which the whole system is applied we 
will assume the case of a household of 
ten persons, producing five hundred 
gallons of liquid wastes per day, living in 
a house from which the ground slopes 
slightly toward an area, preferably of 
grass land, about 60x75* feet square, and 



* If the available ground is of restricted area the drains may 
safely be placed at intervals of three feet, using one branch 
piece and one plain piece alternately for the cross-drain. 



2 1 2 SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 

the soil of which is of a light and porous 
character. 

Let the settling-chamber and flush- 
tank be built fifty feet from the house, 
preferably among shrubbery. The four- 
inch house drain delivers into the first 
compartment of the settling chamber, in 
the manner shown in the cut, and the 
sewage flows from this into the second 
compartment and thence into the flush- 
tank. The settling-chamber should hold 
about two hundred and fifty gallons 
and the flush-tank should have a capacity 
of about five hundred gallons between the 
bottom of the receiving limb and the top 
of the discharging limb of the siphon. The 
cover of the discharging chamber may be 
perforated with four half-inch holes. 

From the outlet of the siphon, a four- 
inch pipe, laid with cemented joints and 
about two feet or more below the surface 
of the ground, leads to the edge of the 



S UB-SURFA CE IRR1GA TION. 2 1 3 

irrigation field with an inclination of 
four inches per hundred feet. At this 
point it enters by an ordinary 4x4 X 
branch into the side of a four-inch pipe 
running at right angles to it. This pipe 
is made of sections of plain pipe two feet 
long with branch pieces to connect with 
the tiles, one foot long, so that by placing 
one branch piece between each two plain 
pieces tile connections are furnished at 
intervals of five feet. The drainage field 
being sixty feet long we shall require, to 
give the one thousand feet of drain neces- 
sary under the assumed conditions, six- 
teen branches occupying a width of 
seventy-five feet. 

We will assume that the irrigation field 
is brought to a uniform slope inThe direc- 
tion in which the tiles are laid of two 
inches per hundred feet, and that it has 
an abrupt elevation of one or two feet at 
its upper end to give sufficient covering to 
the cross-drain. 



2 14 S UB-SURFA CE IRRIGA TION. 

Sixteen parallel trenches, sixty feet 
long, should be dug from each branch- 
piece of the cross-drain to the opposite 
side of the field. It will be worth while 
to bring these, by careful leveling, to a 
very exact grade. Their depth should be a 
little more than ten inches. In the bottom 
of these, gutter-pieces should be laid and 
firmly bedded in continuous lines. On 
these gutter pieces let the tiles be laid, 
beginning at the upper end. The joints 
should be spaced by using a thick piece 
of sole leather as a gauge. The cap- 
pieces should be laid over the joints and 
the whole should then be carefully 
covered and filled in at the sides with 
earth free from lumps or stones. After 
the caps-are securely covered the rest of 
the filling may be shoveled in and well 
trodden down and the sods replaced. 

If constructed with care and in strict 
compliance with these directions, the 



SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 2 1 5 

whole system may be relied on perma- 
nently — perhaps perpetually — as an effi- 
cient means for the disposal of whatever 
liquid wastes the household may produce. 

Like all other human appliances, how- 
ever, the work will require some intelli- 
gent supervision and care. It may or 
may not be necessary from time to time 
to remove the scum and sediment from 
the settling chamber. Ordinarily the 
flow through a 300-gallon chamber will 
remove the solid matters, as they decom- 
pose and become macerated, about as fast 
as they are delivered. Sometimes this is 
not the case, but the necessity for hand- 
cleansing is very rare. A thick scum 
forms almost immediately, but it rarely 
becomes so thick as to interfere with the 
proper flow of the liquid. 

The flush-tank should be looked to 
from time to time to see that it is dis- 
charging properly ; but it rarely needs 



2 1 6 SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 

further care than the occasional lifting 
of the six-inch pipe and an inspection of 
the discharging limb. 

With regard to the irrigation field, it 
needs no attention whatever, so long as 
the tiles remain open. When they 
become obstructed the fact is made mani- 
fest by the cessation of the rank growth 
over the active tiles, indicating a stoppage 
which prevents the sewage from flowing 
on through the remainder of the drains. 
Sometimes, where the amount of drain 
is insufficient, the sewage will rise to the 
surface if an obstruction prevents its 
flowing through the whole length of the 
drains. In either case, it is only necessary 
to dig down carefully to the level of the 
gutter, remove a few of the pipes, clean 
them out and replace them. The removal, 
cleansing and replacing of one hundred 
feet of drain ought easily to be done in half 
a day, and the removal of such amounts, 



SUB-SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 2 1 7 

where the work has been well executed at 
the outset, is rarely required. 

For smaller households, the amount of 
sewage to be treated is less, of course, 
and a much smaller irrigation area will 
suffice, and a smaller tank. 

A piece of ground fifty feet square, 
having ten rows of tiles five feet apart 
and fifty feet long, will suffice for even a 
large household with an abundant water- 
supply. For the better illustration of the 
arrangement of this system, I give in 
figure- 20 a plan for the work in the case of 
lot fifty feet wide, with a depth of open 
ground behind the house of somewhat 
more than fifty feet. The leaching drains 
may safely begin at a distance of even 
ten feet from the back of the house, 
requiring for the whole a clear area of only 
fifty feet by sixty feet. With still smaller 
households the length of drain may be 
very much shortened. In my own case, 



n 



HOUSE. 



<D CP S3. 



^ranthJJp^ 



soft. 



FIG. 20. — ARRANGEMENT OF FLUSH-TANK AND DRAINS FOR A SMALL LOT. 



S UB- S URFA CE IRRIGA TION. 2 1 9 

where water-closets were not used, the 
total length of irrigation drain was only 
two hundred feet. 

The length of tile required for a given 
number of persons, or for a given amount 
of sewage, depends on the porosity 
of the soil, and thus far there has been 
no sufficient experience to determine 
what the variation should be for soils of 
different porosity. Heavy clays are never 
so well suited to the work as lighter 
loams, but they can be made measurably 
good by very thorough and deep drainage. 
The working of the system in the case of 
such clays can be very much improved 
by filling the trenches, after the laying of 
the tile, with sand, gravel, or fine cinders. 

I have had all manner of soils to con- 
tend with in the construction of these 
works, and I have never yet found a 
single case where, with a sufficient exten- 
sion of the system — within reasonable 



2 20 SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 

limits — a good result could not be 
attained. The irrigation field connected 
with the Woman's Prison, referred to 
above, would be very satisfactory if the 
amount of sewage delivered to it were in 
proportion to the amount delivered by an 
ordinary household. 

There is one objection to this system as 
described, which must not be ignored. 
The settling basin is a cesspool. It 
retains organic waste matter in a state 
of noisome decomposition. It is, how- 
ever, made perfectly tight, so that 
there is no possibility of the escape of 
its foul contents by leakage. Its water- 
level is never changed, so that no press- 
ure is brought to bear upon its limited 
atmosphere, and it is traversed by a 
stream of water amounting to fully twice 
its capacity every twenty-four hours. 
This stream removes its putrefying con- 
tents as they are produced. The most 



SUB- SURF A CE IRRIGA TION. 2 2 1 

that can be said in its disfavor is that it is 
worse than any necessary accompaniment 
of disposal by a system of sewerage ; but, 
except by regular sewerage, there has yet 
been found no efficient way to obviate its 
use. It certainly reduces the cesspool 
nuisance to the smallest possible limits, 
and I think we may safely trust it, con- 
fined and guarded as it is, to produce no 
exhalations which can do harm through 
its tight cover or through the well-venti- 
lated drains leading from it to the house. 
The fresh-air inlet for the drainage sys- 
tem of the house should be placed near 
to the flush-tank, so that the whole 
system may be thoroughly supplied with 
air. 



In the foregoing remarks, it has by no 
means been attempted to give full direc- 
tions for the guidance of house-drainage 



222 SUB-SURFACE IRRIGATION. 

work, but rather to set forth certain 
points for the information of house-build- 
ers. The plumber is, and, with the gen- 
eral public, will long remain, the final 
authority in the decision of all questions 
arising. The better plumbers — those 
who keep themselves intelligently in- 
formed as to improvements in their art — 
will be a very useful authority ; all 
plumbers, when brought face to face with 
the average householder, are a masterful 
authority, and their control is generally 
complete. The information here given 
may, now and then, either aid them to 
better judgment, or enable their clients to 
modify their practices in some important 
respects. 



THE END. 



